Looking for “Merchana Boon” or “Ant Hill”

12 years ago

Struffoli, from www.italian-food-recipes.net

I am remiss in posting this request which was sent to me a few months ago. Somehow, the request was set aside, but it caught my attention recently. I sent what I thought was a suitable suggestion to the requestee, but now realize I never heard back.

Please read on. If this recipe sounds familiar, please let me know if I was on the right track – or- if my suggestion was totally off base.

The request:

“My name is Astghik and me and my mom are trying to find out a recipe for “Merchana Boon” or “ant hill”? I was wondering if you or somebody you knew may know the recipe…“

Astghik described the sweet dessert thusly,

“It’s small, small pieces of dough that is like fried or baked very well then it’ll be put together with like honey or a syrup and made into balls. The dough is also sometimes in long pieces of dough made the same way. It’s very, very good. Hope this helps I’ll see if I can find out more from my mom. Thanks a bunch 🙂

What I suggested:

“Your description almost sounds like an Italian dessert call struffoli, which is tiny balls of fried dough, covered in honey.”
I asked Astghik to check out the struffoli website and give me her thoughts. Since I never heard back, I don’t know if this suggestion was even close.

Any ideas??

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Ara says:

May 21, 2012 at 6:06 pm

To me, it sounds more like an Armenian variation of croquembouche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquembouche). The name implies that the balls of dough are piled up into a "hill". Maybe using something like bishi instead of the choux a la creme?
- Robyn says:
  
  May 22, 2012 at 3:44 pm
  
  After looking up the recipe on wikipedia, that's certainly a possibility. Thanks!
Robyn says:

May 22, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Here is a comment from Christine:

"This is in response to your latest blog post, I entered a comment on both your blog and Facebook page and neither showed up, don't know if you got it ... so this is my last attempt. I'm pretty sure it's what your reader is looking for.

Astghik is talking about “ Tkhvatsk Mrchnapouyn (Gargantag) ”, an Eastern Armenian dessert. Basically it is a cookie dough, either grated or passed through a meat grinder before baking, or baked and then broken into tiny pieces. Once cooled, it is then mixed in with condensed milk or dulce de leche, butter, walnuts, cream, honey and shaped like an anthill ( just as you would shape a Mont-Blanc aux Marrons dessert ); then drizzled with chocolate ganache glaze or salted-butter caramel and refrigerated."

Thanks Christine!