Jenny's Home Ladies' Fingers (Daktyla) 300g

Jenny's Home Ladies' Fingers (Daktyla) 300g

One of the most popular Cypriot sweet pastries called daktyla, or ladies' fingers. True to the description, these crunchy sweets are about the size of mid-sized fingers. The pastry's construction consists of dough, wrapped around a crunchy centre of crushed almonds, sugar, cinnamon, carnation spices and rose water, that is fried and then doused in sugary, flower-infused syrup.

The dough that surrounds the daktyla is not difficult to make at home. Consisting of flour with water, oil and a little salt, the dough rests for a few hours. It is then rolled out thinly with a rolling pin and cut into squares about as long as a lady's finger. For the proper consistency, it is important to follow a recipe. One recipe at Global Cookies Web site, for example, uses 1 cup (about 237 ml) of water and 0.33 cup (about 78 ml) of oil for 7.5 cups (about 1.7 kg) of flour, along with just a dash of salt.

Meanwhile, almonds are crushed and mixed with cinnamon and some sugar in a bowl. A small pile of the daktyla mixture is placed in a centre row of each dough square. The each square is rolled up tightly around the nuts. These cylinders are sealed at the edges by pressing a fork into the seams, and then they are deep fried in oil.

As the daktyla are drying on paper towels, a simple syrup is being made on the stove top. In a pot, water, sugar, honey, some blossom water or rose water and even citrus zest are brought to a boil. A ratio of about three parts water, two parts sugar, and one part honey is customary for a thick syrup, with just a little blossom water and zest added for flavour. After the liquid becomes syrupy, the crispy daktyla can be dipped in the pot and then set aside to dry and cool.