Venous

Lovely bakery in Korba on Baghdad street. Great selection of pastries for great prices. My favorites are the date cookies covered in sesame seeds and the cheese croissants. I have no idea why the name is spelt like this, it is something I'd expect to read in a hospital (venous: as in related to veins), I assume the intention was something different... Maybe a misspelling of Venus?? Goddess of love, because you will love their food??? No idea. Either way their baking is better than their spelling which is what really counts. :-)

Eid Sweets

Kahk is not the only sweet stockpiled and devoured during Eid. There are many many delights consumed during this sweet holiday season. During the Eid prayer, people walk amongst the people praying and hand out sweet dates, bonbons, cookies, etc. Here is a picture of a few of the festive offerings from the bakeries:

Kahk

Kahk is an Arabian dessert eaten at Eid-ul-Fitr that reminds me of cookies that my grandmother used to make us at Christmas-time in Canada: buttered walnut-balls. The walnut balls are more round (Kahk is flattened a bit), they were also much more "solid" and dry (Kahk on the other hand is very light and melts in your mouth). Apart from that they are just about the same, although most Kahk don't have walnuts in them (though you can find some with crushed nuts in the center, or with dates or other jellies).

Kahk ready to go home!

Rows upon rows of deeeeeelicious Kahk

You can try to make them yourselves by following this Kahk recipe from Al Ahram.

Koneifa

Koneifa is soooooooooo fabulous. And when it is mixed with a layer of eshta, it skyrockets right off the fabulousness chart.

Pistachios top off the rapturous perfection that is Koneifa with Esta

Basically, Koneifa is tiny bits of shredded phyllo dough baked and covered with gooey sugary love. It sort of reminds me of eating Shredded Wheat cereal - but only a whole lot more yummy and sinful for the waistline.

Uum Ali

Uum Ali, when well prepared, is one of the best - and more calorific - desserts you will ever feast on. Puff pastry, heavy cream, pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, condensed milk all cooked to a golden crisp in the oven (think of the taste of marshmallows over the campfire, peeled back to reveal lots of other melt-in-your-mouth yummy stuff added inside that forms a sweet bread-pudding-like milky goodness)

The Story of Uum Ali, so I've been told, is quite interesting as well, a historic tale of a fight over ascension to the thrown in Egypt and a mother (Uum Ali, the Mother of Ali) desperate to secure her son's place, driven to murder another woman with a ShipShip (wooden sandal used for the baths).

I am not sure how this nasty story got associated with this heavenly dessert... :( but most certainly don't let that stop you from eating it!

Desserts with Eshta and Dates

The sweetest combination of desserts - Eshta and Dates together. Yum.
Often, as in the picture below, also combined with vanilla ice cream, pistachios/slivered almonds, some cake or creamy rice pudding. The dates often make me feel less guilty about the calories for some reason. Mind you, I've been told that the Eshta - in small doses - is actually very healthy also, full of Vitamin A, and of course, calcium.

Eshta (clotted cream)

Eshta figures prominently in many of the Egyptian Ramadan desserts, like qatayef for example. Basically, it is the layer of cream that rises to the top when you heat the milk.

Source: Ethnic Gourmet

Eshta is equivalent of "cool" or "sick", when something is fabulous, you say it.

Here is a recipe from Beirut on how to make clotted cream.
For more information on varieties of yummy creamed dishes, read this nice article from the Washington Times on creme de la creme.

Qatayef

Qatayef (pronouned in Egypt like aht-ei-f) is a crescent-shaped dessert specialty eaten during Ramadan. A yummy fried batter stuffed with cheese or a mixture of nuts, then coated in honey-syrup. It is a delicious treat to feast on after breaking one's fast. There are other more savory versions also, not coated with sugar, stuffed with white cheese mixtures or minced meat (something like a thick perogie, minus the potatoes and sour cream).

Qatayef, just waiting to be eaten, yum!

The nut mixture that is stuffed into the Qatayef

Ramadan Delights

Include dates, figs, apricots, nuts, tamarind drink, carob drink, coconut, prunes, etc. etc. See also Ramadan Goodie Bags and Khoshev and Yummy Drinks

Mother of All Sweetness

The Mother of All Sweetness

Egyptian sweets (called Halawiat - from the word Halaowa literally meaning something sweet and beautiful) are fabulous.

Doused in a sugary honey syrup, sometimes filled with cream or covered with pistachios, then these gooey yummy treats are nice following any meal or even make for a fabulous quick breakfast.

The Egyptians can eat literally platefuls of these. Myself, I tend to max out after two or three. Nevertheless, I consider halawiat to be the mother of all sweetness and so they are way up there in my list of fabulous things about Egypt.

I would add a note here, that I think WHERE you buy the halawiat makes a difference, I've found a nice shop where the sweets are very light and just melt in your mouth. So, if they don't appeal to your tastebuds at once, believe me, divine and fabulous halawiat do exist, you just haven't found the right shop yet. Keep looking.