In Azerbaijan, it usually involves teamwork of relatives, friends and neighbors who congregate at someone's home to make this Nowruz delight.[5] Like other pastries prepared for Nowruz, shekerbura also has a symbolic meaning which denotes the half-moon or flame of fire.[6][7]
The name for this crescent-shaped pastry comes from Persian shekar bureh شکربوره. Shekar means sugar in Persian and Bureh is a word that goes back to the Middle Persian *Bōrak. This word ultimately goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *bher- which meant "to carve, cut, split,".[8] Turkic languages have borrowed this word from Persian.[3] The name of another pastry, Borak (Börek) is also borrowed from the same Persian word.[9][10]
The dough is made of wheat flour, butter, milk, egg yolks, cream, and yeast. The filling is prepared from peeled almond or fried nuts mixed with sugar powder. It also includes cardamom to flavor the pastry.[11]
The dough is rolled and cut into small round shapes, then filled with stuffing and closed up by making a pattern of stitches. The stitching pattern on the dough is produced using traditional tweezers called maggash.[3]
InPersian, it is called shekarbureh (Persian: شکربوره). Originally, it was like a halva made from sugar and almonds. Its alternate names in Persian include Shekarborak, Shekarbora, Shekarpareh, Shekarbozeh and Shekarpirah.[12] In its different variations, the dessert is also common in Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey.
In Anatolia this pastry is called Şekerpare in Turkish and is one of the popular desserts in the Turkish cuisine.[13] Mainly prepared by baking some soft balls of almond based pastry dipped in thick lemon-flavored sugar syrup, şekerpare is pronounced “sheh-kehr-PAH-rih” in Turkish.
^Hạsandūst, Muhạmmad. 2014.Hassandust, Mohammad. 2015. The etymological dictionary of Persian. 5 Vols. Tehran: Academy of Persian Language and Literature. vol. 1 p.529 .(Farhang-i rīšašināḫtī-i zabān-iFārsī Ǧild 2 Ǧild 1. s.529)
^Nişanyan – Türkçe Etimolojik Sözlük: börek. accessed: 26 April 2021.
^Hạsandūst, Muhạmmad. 2014.Hassandust, Mohammad. 2015. The etymological dictionary of Persian. 5 Vols. Tehran: Academy of Persian Language and Literature. vol. 1 p.529 .(Farhang-i rīšašināḫtī-i zabān-iFārsī Ǧild 2 Ǧild 1. s.529)
^Ahmedov, Ahmed-Jabir (1986). Azərbaycan kulinariyası, Азербайджанская кулинария, Azerbaijan Cookery - cookbook, in Azeri, Russian & English. Baku: Ishig. p. 151.
