Special Sweets And Desserts From Istanbul, As Old As the Ottoman Empire, And Unique

Written by Jheelum Basu | August 17, 2024

One of the best cities of Turkey to experience its desserts is Istanbul, which boasts a variety of desserts, most from the ghosts of its past – the golden Ottoman Empire of the Turks. From its own sticky ice creams being sold by cheeky street vendors to the unusual chicken pudding, Istanbul offers the best of the Turkish dessert fare, with its special sweets and desserts, which include the most delicious dessert recipes.

Muhallebi

Arabian pudding is called Muhallebi in Turkey, and also the capital of Istanbul, and it's quite similar to the French blancmange. It's made with milk and sugar and thickened with cornstarch or flour, and true to its roots, rose water or orange blossom water is used to flavour it. If blancmange doesn't ring a bell, think of the panna cotta that is cooked, put into moulds to set, chilled, and then eaten. Muhallebi is quite similar. Depending on the area, it's topped with chopped pistachios, coconut flakes, cinnamon, almonds or raisins.

Dondurma

Turkish ice cream, anyone? No, you won't need to play the game of snatch-the-ice-cream from the local ice cream vendor. Just kidding, you'll end up doing that if you buy ice cream from the street vendors. Turkish ice cream is different and is said to come from the city of Kahramanmaraş, known as Maraş in the past. This ice cream is chewy and dense and doesn't melt easily. To the milk and sugar mixture of the dondurma, Arab gum and salep (flour made from the purple orchid root) are added. The salep is used a lot in the native Kahramanmaraş region because it's really chewy, so it's common to see folks eating this ice cream with a knife and fork. The ice cream's milk is from goats fed thyme, orchid flowers and milkvetch, a herb.

Lokum

A plate of candies during wartime, a lion, a wardrobe and a witch, what could go wrong? C.S Lewis’ book that was adapted into the Narnia movie series pretty much started with one of the Pevensie siblings betraying his kin for a bunch of candies. So what exactly is Turkish delight or Lokum, that is one of its special sweets? It's a jelly-like confection made with a gel made of sugar and starch, and of course, it's super sweet with a coating of powdered sugar coating the Lukum cubes. The Turks love their plain with pistachios, but it comes in a variety of flavours from mint, bergamot, orange, rose and lemon. It was first made in 1777 by Bekir Affendi, who came to Istanbul from Anatolia. You can find Affendi’s shop in Istanbul, even today, called Haci Bekir. It was called ‘rahat-ul-hulkum’, meaning to soothe the throat. The name is complex for Westerners to pronounce, so an English traveller came up with the name Turkish delight when he brought some Lokum back home.

Tavuk göğsü

This dessert makes it to the weird and unusual list of desserts almost always because it's made with chicken breast. It's a pudding that uses cinnamon and vanilla and has the creaminess, richness and thickness of a typical rice pudding. This one is also inspired by the French blancmange and the Ottoman royalty would indulge in this pudding when they lived in Istanbul’s Topkapi palace.

İrmik helvası

You're familiar with halwa, this is the Turkish version of it which deviates from the usual rice and uses semolina with equal parts sugar, most of the time, instead. It's cooked in milk and made fragrant with spices and it's a classic Ottoman dessert that has been around in the country for centuries. Literally every restaurant and cafe sells İrmik helvası in individual portions, and in common practice, it is served to guests after a loved one passes on.

Kazandibi

Another dessert dating back to the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Kazandibi translates to burnt bottom pudding because its bottom gets burnt in the pan it's cooked in. This dish also uses the Mastic gum that is used in Turkish cuisine and the dessert is starchy owing to the rice flour and starch in it. Common flavours added include vanilla and rose water. It's either served as thick squares or thin ribbons with a caramelized top.

Fıstıklı sarma

Baklava is also a popular dessert in Istanbul, and this Turkish sweet might resemble it because it's one of the several types that you will find in Istanbul. It uses a smooth green paste, which is nothing but pistachio butter, that is called the fıstık ezmesi. This paste is wrapped with phyllo dough to keep the paste contained, and the name of the dessert translates to pistachio roll.

Künefe: A Delectable Cheese Delight

Being one of the most popular Middle Eastern delights, Künefe is best described as a sugar-soaked strand of shredded phyllo dough, kataifi, that is filled with either cheese or cream, soaked in a sugary aromatic syrup and topped with crushed nuts such as pistachios.