Everything Turkey!

When I first saw this dessert featured on Diary of a Foodie: Gourmet.com Istanbul episode, I quickly became obsessed. It had all my favorite components: cream, milk, dried fruit, nuts, translucent leaves of dough. I was in Turkey for a brief time several years ago, but we headed straight for the verdant hills bypassing all the delicious food of Istanbul. Last fall I visited SL in Berlin and we scoured her Turkish neighborhood, Kreuzberg, for this special dessert. Most people looked at us quizzically and pointed to the wide array of other flaky and nutty sweets. It turns out that because it is a Ramadan dessert, the rest of the year it hibernates. It wasn't until this fall at a local Arabic grocer, that my mom finds herself at least once a week, I found a box of Güllaç imported from Istanbul. It was meant to be. If I wasn't going to be in Turkey during Ramadan, I was going to have to make it myself and what better day to make it than TURKEY DAY! For the first of two dinners, I decided it was the perfect light sweet that allows room for our second meal at the next house. It was simple to make and not too sweet. A recipe was on the box, but I approximated between it and Gourmet's recipe and it turned out great. We had fresh pomegranates from the backyard, so I added some seeds for color at tartness. Removing the seeds was probably the most difficult part, but everything else easy.


This summer SL went to Istanbul and brought me one of my other favorite sweets, halva, as well as Turkish delights from one of oldest confectioners in Turkey, Haci Bekir. Both delicious.