Mediterranean Desserts: A Guide to Baklava, Namoura and More
Walk up to a Mediterranean dessert counter for the first time and it can feel like a lot: golden pastry, pale cakes, small cookies, everything glossy with syrup. Much of it comes from the Levant, and it all runs on the same handful of ingredients. Once you know them, choosing gets easier.
What they have in common
Nuts, semolina, filo pastry, butter and sugar syrup, often scented with rose water or orange blossom water. That is the core of the whole category. These are small, dense and sweet, so one piece goes a long way.
Small, dense and sweet: one piece goes a long way.
The pastries
Baklava is the one everybody knows: thin sheets of filo layered with butter and chopped nuts, usually pistachio or walnut, and finished with syrup. Which country invented it is argued over constantly, and every side is certain.
Warbat wraps thin pastry around a soft, sweet cream filling and is usually finished with syrup too.
The cakes and puddings
Namoura is a semolina cake soaked in syrup and usually topped with an almond. A close relative is called basbousa in Egypt. It is moist rather than fluffy, and a small square is plenty.
Layali Lebnan means “Lebanese nights”. It is a set semolina pudding topped with cream and pistachios. Rice pudding is the plainest thing on the list: milk, rice and sugar, often scented with rose water, usually served cold. If everything else looks too sweet, start there.
The cookies
Barazek are thin, crisp cookies coated in sesame seeds and studded with pistachios, closely associated with Damascus. Ghraybeh is the opposite: a shortbread-style butter cookie, usually topped with a single pistachio, that crumbles the moment you bite it. Both go well with tea.
How to choose
Want one thing? Take the baklava. Want something creamy? Layali Lebnan or the rice pudding. Want something to go with tea? Barazek or ghraybeh.
Better still, take small pieces of two or three things rather than one large piece of any of them. Strong coffee or tea is the traditional partner, and unsweetened iced tea does the same job of cutting through the syrup.
All of these are on our dessert list, along with coconut balls. If you are ordering catering for an event, a mixed tray of small pieces is almost always the safe choice.
