EAT IN ASIA / Destinations / Other destinations / Africa / Egypt
All you would like to know about traditional Egyptian sweets
It is not a secret that Arabic cuisine couldn’t exist without sweets. Pastries, small cakes, puddings, phyllo rolls are so liked and popular. As it was in Lebanon, in Egypt sweets are really sweet and full of sugar. Doesn’t matter whether that are crunchy cakes or pudding like desserts, you might think that sugar is the base. Sweets in any form are everywhere available. Packed in boxes, sold on stalls, cut from a large piece.
The most common types of Egyptian sweets are either these made from a phyllo dough or basing on a semolina cake with a sugar syrup.
Basbousa is one of these cakes. It is a moist semolina cake, that is soaked in a sugar syrup. The basic dough is made of sugar, flour, eggs, butter and yoghurt. For the syrup, sugar and water are main ingredients. The preparation of basbousa is quite simple. The first step is to prepare the syrup. Then, combine all liquid ingredients. In a separate bowl mix all dry ingredients and slowly add the liquid mixture. When the dough is well mixed and there are no lumps, pour it in a pan. You can make some square shapes on the top and decorate it with whole almonds. Put the pan aside and wait for about half an hour. Thanks to that the dough will absorb liquids. After baking basbousa, pour the syrup over the hot cake and place it once again in the oven for a couple of minutes.
The next worth trying dessert is harissa. Harissa is similar to basbousa but thicker and has a slightly different texture.
Then comes kunafa. Kunafa is made from a noodle-like pastry and stuffed with different fillings. Mainly with cream or cheese. As in basbousa, at the end of preparing kunafa, the sugar syrup is poured on the dough. Ingredients are also very similar – butter, sugar, water and shredded phyllo pastry. Depending on the origin, there are some variations of kunafa. Some of them are rolled and stuffed with a creamy filling, some are layered – dough – stuffing – dough.
Another kind of a dessert is feteer meshaltet, also known as Egyptian pizza. It is worth saying, that feteer can be either sweet or savory. Traditionally, feteer meshaltet has no filling and is topped with honey, jam or cheese. An optional filling may include coconut, cream or cheese.
Then we have some pudding like desserts. Muhallabiah and Egyptian lenza, that is a combination of basboussa and muhallabiah. So, what is that exactly? Muhallabiah is a desert you can prepare in less than half an hour. It bases on rice flour, condensed milk, water, milk and some flavors. It could be one of them or all of them at once. Depends on you. Usually rose and vanilla extracts are used. Then some crushed nuts and raisins for a topping.
How to make muhallabiah?
It is very simple. To a bowl pour milk and add rice flour. Mix it. Pour water and condensed (sweetened) milk on a pan. Boil it. To the boiling mixture add combined rice flour with milk. Stir it on a moderate heat. Remove from the stove. Add extracts and mix it. Pour the pudding into small cups or bowl and top with crushed nuts. Easy, isn’t it? And how delicious!
As you already know how to make muhallabiah, let’s try lenza. An Egyptian lenza is a basboussa like cake with a thick milky pudding filling. Both the crust and the topping are made from flour, butter, eggs and sugar. You can add shredded coconut if you want. Beat butter with sugar. Add eggs to it. Combine flour with coconut and add it the mixture of butter and sugar. Mix it. Cool in the fridge for about half an hour. After that time, use ¾ of the dough to form the crust. The resting ¼ you will need for the topping. Fill the crust with the pudding like muhallabiah and cover with the remaining dough. You can make some semi-cuts on the upper layer and garnish with some preserved or canned fruits. After baking for about 20 minutes, remove from the oven. Let it cool for a couple of minutes and pour the sugar syrup over it.
There is a one more dessert that should not be omitted. Tulumba. Tulumba is a deep-fried small sweet, soaked in a sugar syrup. It is oval, rimmed and of a length of about 4 cm.
But that is not all. Egyptian cuisine is full of sweets. Most of them is really sweet and base on sugar in any form – either mixed in the dough or in the form of the syrup. While making some of them is more time consuming, especially if you don’t have the original pastry (and you have to make on your own either phyllo sheets or noodles), some of them (as muhallabiah) you could make quickly and impress your friends!
