Kaak Warqa

My immigrant parents were not cookie people. My French mother found chocolate chip cookies a peculiar American curiosity, and my Tunisian father, in typical Mediterranean fashion, preferred to offer me oranges for dessert. In retrospect, it was no surprise that I developed an outsize fondness for cookies, one that only grew when I discovered kaak warqa.

Each summer, my parents would send me off from Philadelphia, where we lived, to visit my Tunisian family halfway across the world. I didn’t like most of the desserts in Tunisia. They came off as overly sweet and were usually studded with whole nuts, while I was more interested in chocolate. I can’t remember the first time I ate a kaak warqa, but it must have been its smooth, doughnut-shaped appearance that first caught my attention; I could slip one onto my finger like a giant confectionery ring. And then there was the taste: The circle of silky-smooth, buttery dough was wrapped around a barely sweetened, rosewater-scented filling of ground almonds. I was in love.

In Tunisia, kaak warqa are considered the choicest of sweets — and the most expensive. They’re offered at weddings and during Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, and the Prophet’s birthday. When special guests come over, kaak warqa are accompanied by pine nuts and served with tea boiled with mint. They’re sold only at specialty patisseries and are bought by the kilo. The kaak warqa is a cookie of opulence, and such extravagance demands quantity.

Perhaps because of its lofty place in the Tunisian dessert pantheon, I had never considered making kaak warqa at home. In Tunisia, the cookies are made with a special kaak warqa flour that you can find in the supermarket. (White food coloring is added to make the dough extra snowy.) It seemed like one of those treats that could be made only in an industrial kitchen by a professional pastry chef. But during the pandemic, when I couldn’t travel to Tunisia, I found myself getting desperate for a kaak warqa. Even in my temporary home of Marseille, France, where a sizable Tunisian population has lived for generations, I couldn’t find anyone selling them. So I decided to take the plunge and attempt baking them at home.

While kaak warqa aren’t the simplest cookies to make, I was surprised by how easily I lost myself in the process. I learned to knead the white dough and roll it thin, to slice and measure with a surgeon’s precision, to wrap the dough around the marzipan, and to roll it into little doughnuts. The smell of clarified butter and rosewater filled my kitchen, and, in the end, I was left with several dozen cookies — slightly lumpier than the patisserie ones, perhaps, but with that same delicate, fragrant taste.

By now, everyone in my family knows that kaak warqa is my favorite sweet. Last October, I finally made it back to Tunisia after several years away. At the end of my visit, I went to see my grandmother, who handed me several boxes of kaak warqa — one from each of the aunts and uncles, who know that, despite my age, cookies are still the surest way to my heart.

Back home, after a week of gorging myself, it became clear that I would need to start giving away some kaak warqa. One night, I met some friends at a bar with the last box of cookies. There were still too many for our group to consume, so I made my way through the crowded patio as strangers juggled cigarettes and glasses of natural wine to reach into the box.

“What is this?” they gasped upon their first bite. “I’ve never had anything like this before. What’s it called?”

“Kaak warqa,” I replied with a smile. “The best cookie in the world.” — Sarah Souli