You’ve been through recipes that didn’t turn out to be as expected? Either because you tried something that sounds good, but was from a non-reputable source, or the room was cold, you didn’t feel good that day, the stars were not aligned?! Choose your reason. ;) It happens to all of us.

The other day, I had such experience, after trying a recipe from a book I was borrowing from a friend. It was supposed to be dessert like breakfast bars, but we just didn’t like the outcome as much. I thought about a Turkish bakery classic: Crescent Rolls. When I was a kid, my mom warned me about eating them; saying they put all the left overs in it to bake it with. Well, it tasted good, too! Recently, another Turkish blogger posted a recipe for those. Now, it was my turn to try, instead of tossing them out. The resulting rolls were really tasty! Close to what you can get from the bakeries.

As long as the filling you have used is moist, have a lot of cinnamon & cocoa, I think you will get to the same result. But it is one of those fillings that one can never give a reasonable recipe for, because of the nature of these cookies. Check out Betül’s post for the recipe.

Black or green, I love olives in every way they are prepared. Here, I am not even considering the canned sliced black things one can buy in the US supermarkets as olives. They are just not olives. A good cure to olives makes all the difference.

We have them in breakfast, as whole or as a spread, use them as fillings to pastry. Here, in this recipe, the dough contains them and you’ll have a taste of them in every bite, if you are lucky. If you were to try these, go for good olives to get a good result.

(make about 22 - 25 biscuits)

• 3.5 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 eggs (reserve one yolk for brushing the biscuits)
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 cup plain yoghurt, preferably homemade
• 1 cup pitted, coarsely chopped olives (prefer using calamata or some type of marinated olives)
• 5 scallions (cut into 1/4 - 1/5 inch pieces)
• 1 bunch of fresh mint, finely chopped
• 1 tsps baking powder

1. Heat your oven to 350F (175C), lay parchment paper on your baking trays, or lightly oil
2. Mix all the ingredients (except for one egg yolk, and only 3 cups of flour) together. Add flour until you have soft but workable dough. Do not add too much; your biscuits would be too hard.
3. Take about an egg, roll like a ball, put them onto cookie sheet
4. Brush them with slightly beaten egg yolk
5. Bake in 375F (190C) for 30 - 45 minutes or till brown