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What are the Famous Desserts in Turkey?
Turkish cuisine, which is at the forefront with Turkish desserts as well as its meals, offers delicious tastes together. There are many traditional Turkish desserts with sherbet, milk, cheese, fruit, and legumes. In this sense, it has a very wide range. In fact, the most important reason why it is so wide is the Ottoman palace cuisine. The place of dessert in the Ottoman Empire is very important. Palace cooks in particular created many desserts for Sultans. Many of these Ottoman heritage desserts are still made in various parts of Anatolia.
Today we will share the list of the best desserts in Turkey with you. Especially if you are going to travel to Turkey, we definitely recommend you try the desserts on the list. If you are a sweet food lover, you will love this list!
List of the Best Turkish Desserts
#1 Baklava
Baklava is one of the first flavors that come to mind when it comes to Turkish sweets. Baklava is an important dumpling that has a place in Turkish, Middle Eastern, and Balkan cuisines. It is made by placing walnuts, pistachios, almonds, or hazelnuts, depending on the region, between thin phyllo dough. It is generally sweetened with sugar syrup. Honey syrup can also be used.
Gaziantep is the city where baklava is best made in Turkey. Gaziantep, the gastronomy center of Turkey, is also one of the places that produce the most pistachios in the world. There are many varieties of baklava in itself. You can even come across chocolate baklava called “Cold Baklava” (Turkish: Soguk Baklava). Who can say no to crispy baklava made with a mixture of tens of thin layers of dough worthy of sultans, sherbet, and plenty of pistachios?
#2 Sütlaç (Rice Pudding)
Sütlaç, is one of the most classic Turkish desserts that have survived from the Ottoman palace cuisine; It is a delicious dessert made with rice, milk, and sugar. Oven rice pudding, which is cooked in the oven until golden brown, is traditionally served in clay pots.
#3 Kunefe (Turkish Cheese Dessert)
Kunefe is a kind of cheese Turkish dessert. This dessert, which is famous in the city of Hatay in Turkey, is a very delicious dessert made with a combination of a special cheese, butter, dough, and sherbet that gets longer as you go. It is often served with pistachios and cream. People from the other end of the country come to Hatay just to eat künefe. Of course, you can easily find künefe in big cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, and Antalya. But the best is in Hatay.
#4 Keşkül (Keskhul)
Keşkul is a traditional milk dessert in Turkish cuisine. Keşkul is made with milk, crushed almonds, sugar, rice flour, and potato flour. The bowls are decorated with ground almonds, pine nuts, and pistachios. It is one of the desserts made in Ottoman palaces.
#5 Tavuk Gögsü (Chicken Breast Pudding)
Tavuk Gögsü (chicken breast) is a dessert in Turkish cuisine made from milk, sugar, rice flour, and chicken breast meat. It is usually served with cinnamon sprinkled on top. You may be surprised to hear about chicken meat. But you will be even more surprised when you eat it. Once you taste it, it will immediately hook you up.
#6 Aşure (Ashura)
Ashura is a dessert made from a mixture of cereals, fruits, dried fruits, and nuts. Historically, it is believed that when Noah landed after the Great Flood, he made this dessert with the last ingredients he had left. Ashura is made in large quantities to commemorate this day and is distributed to friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, and others as an offering of peace and love regardless of one’s religion or belief system. Because of its heavy and calorie-rich nature, Ashura was traditionally made and eaten during the colder months of the year. Armenians make Ashura as a Christmas pudding for New Year celebrations.
#7 Şekerpare
It is a pastry dessert with sorbet leftover from Ottoman cuisine. Also called wet cookies. It is served with hazelnut, almond, or pistachio powder on it.
#8 Kadayıf (Kadaif)
Kadayif is a dessert obtained as a result of the dough obtained by mixing flour and water, turning it into thin wires, and sweetening it with sherbet. It is mostly made in the Balkans, Turkey, and the Middle East countries.
#9 Güllaç (Rice wafers stuffed with nuts)
Güllaç is one of the most traditional Turkish desserts, prepared with corn starch, rose water, milk, and sugar. It had an important place in the Ottoman palace cuisine. Its recipe dates back to the 1400s.
Since it has a refreshing effect in Ottoman cuisine, rose water is added to both leaves and milk. It is most popular during Ramadan. Although it is a little harder to find compared to other Turkish sweets, we definitely recommend you to taste it.
#10 Ekmek Kadayıfı (Bread Kadaif)
Bread kadayıf or palace bread with cream is a dessert in Turkish cuisine originating from the city of Afyon. It is prepared by putting peanuts or walnuts between the dough. It is then cooked by pouring syrup on it. Usually, cream or ice cream is put on it.
#11 Höşmerim (Cheese Halva)
One of the sweetest forms of cheese is the “höşmerim” dessert. “Höşmerim” is a Turkish dessert unique to Balıkesir, the westernmost city of Turkey, made with milk, rennet and butter, sugar, semolina, and eggs. It is also known as cheese halva or cheese dessert.
#12 Hoşaf (Turkish Compote)
Turkish cuisine is a dessert prepared by boiling dried fruits with sugar water. The name means “sweet water” in Persian. Hosaf is consumed cold, especially in Ramadan, and as a compote prepared with fresh fruit.
#13 Pumpkin Dessert
Pumpkin dessert is a kind of dessert made with pumpkin or chestnut squash. It is performed in many Middle Eastern countries as well as in Turkey. After the pumpkins are peeled, they are boiled for a while. Make sherbet with boiling water and pour it over it. Sprinkle crushed walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, or coconut grated on it. Tahini is also added upon request.
#14 Lokma
Lokma is a Turkish dessert prepared by frying the dough prepared with flour, yeast, salt, and sugar in oil, sweetened with thick syrup, and served. It is especially famous in western Turkey, in Izmir. You can easily find it all over Turkey.
Classic bites are made with syrup and sprinkled with coconut or pistachios. However, lately, “new generation” lokma makers have started to emerge all over Turkey. Lokmacıs with chocolate, caramel, and much more different sauces emerged.
#15 Muhallebi (Turkish Pudding, Custard)
Muhallebi (Custard) is a dessert made using milk and served cold. There are varieties such as mastic pudding and water pudding. In the legends, the origin of the dessert is based on the Sassanid Empire. Turks, on the other hand, interpreted this dessert in their own way.
#16 Pişmaniye (Turkish Fairy Floss)
Pişmaniye is a traditional dessert made with white sugar, wheat flour, butter, and vegetable margarine in Anatolia. “Pişmaniye” produced in Kocaeli, Turkey is quite famous.
#17 Cevizli Sucuk/Orcik (Churchkhela – Walnut Sausage)
It is a candle-shaped dessert that has an important place in Georgian and Anatolian cuisine, originating from Georgia. In Turkey, walnut sausage is also called molasses sausage, sugar sausage, grape sausage, or orcik. It is a dessert made by dipping walnuts in grape or mulberry must in Turkey, usually in Kahramanmaraş, Gümüşhane, Elazığ, Artvin, and the surrounding provinces.
#18 Revani
It is one of the desserts in Turkish cuisine. It is a dessert invented by the palace cooks in honor of the conquest of Armenia and Yerevan during the Ottoman period and called “Revani” because of the Yerevan victory. Revani is also called sponge dessert or yogurt dessert in some places. The dessert contains yogurt. It is a sweet dessert. There are many varieties with walnut, almond, poppy, hazelnut, tahini, coconut, rose, apple, orange, lemon, banana, strawberry, apricot, and pistachio.
#19 Katmer
Katmer is a Turkish dessert obtained by rolling the dough to a thickness of about 2 millimeters, adding cream, poppy, tahini, or pistachios and folding it 4-5 times, and cooking it on the hair. Especially the katmers of Gaziantep, which is famous for its pistachios, are quite famous. The flavor of buffalo cream distributes the flavor of the dessert in the mouth.
#20 Turkish Delight!
We know that your eyes are constantly searching for this dessert on the list. We have reserved the most famous Turkish dessert, Turkish delight, for a nice farewell for you. Turkish delight is a traditional Turkish dessert prepared with water, sugar, starch, and citric acid or tartaric acid, with the addition of seasonings, dried or dried fruits, and similar substances in accordance with its technique. You can get detailed information about Turkish delight from the article we prepared: Turkish Delight
Today we shared with you the top list of Turkish desserts. Of course, Anatolian cuisine is very rich. Here we have shared only some of the most famous known delight Turkish desserts with you. If you come to Turkey, there is no doubt that you will encounter very different desserts in every region. Well, have you ever eaten Turkish dessert? If you have, share your favorite Turkish dessert with us in the comments section. Goodbye!
