Ramadan Recipes: Güllaç With Cream Topping

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Güllaç

For centuries sweet dishes have marked special

occasions, and particularly celebrations, in Turkish

culture, which is why no cuisine in the world features

such an enormous variety of traditional sweetmeats and

sweet dishes.

 

Baklava, ultimate test of the pastry cook's skill, is

offered to guests on joyful occasions such as weddings

and religious feast days. For circumcision feasts the

menu is not complete without zerde, a pudding made of

rice and saffron. The tiny round crisp doughnuts known

as lokma are the sweet for the holy days known as

kandil. Piþmaniye, a kind of candyfloss, required such

energetic kneading that guests used to take turns at

the task. When a women had given birth visitors were

offered drinks of þerbet made from red blocks of clot

flavored lohusa þekeri, and when the baby got its

first tooth boiled wheat with walnuts and sugar would

be served to guests. If a prayer for rain was called

for everyone would contribute some sugar, butter and

flour to cook fragrant helva in great cooking pots,

and in the holy month of Muharrem every household got

out its cauldrons once again to cook aþure, a

delicious and nourishing pudding made of beans,

chickpeas, wheat and every imaginable kind of dried

fruit and nuts. After a death mourners are served with

helva, and forty days later a gathering for prayers in

remembrance of the dead person the guests are given

paper cones of boiled sweets known as akide.

 

But among all these and many more varieties of

traditional sweets the one which to me is the lightest

and most memorable is rose scented Güllaç. This

special dessert of Ramazan, when people who have been

fasting all day need light and tempting foods is made

from tissue thin starch wafers arranged in layers and

soaked in sweetened milk with chopped walnuts almonds

or the clotted cream known as kaymak.

 

Tradition has it that the cook must recite prayers

while kneading the Güllaç dough, which will not take

the correct consistency otherwise. And while dipping

the wafers in the warm milk the Yasin sura should be

repeated.

 

One of the signs that Ramazan is approaching is the

large circular packets of Güllaç wafers each around 45

centimeters in diameter which appear in the shops,

sometimes strung in rows from the ceiling. Each so

thin you can almost see through it, the white wafers

with their bubbly surface are also brittle they break

so a touch - as delicate as their flavor. Below is my

own version of this traditional dessert.

 

Güllaç With Cream Topping

Ingredients: 4 cups milk (1 litter), 10 Güllaç wafers,

2 cups sugar, 1 cup rose water, 100 gr. walnuts

 

For the topping: 2 cups milk, ½ cup sugar, 2

tablespoons flour, 1 and ½ cups whipped cream, 4

teaspoons vanilla sugar

 

To decorate: You may use ground pistachios and

strawberries, pomegranates, cherries or similar fruits

depending on the season.

 

Boil up 4 cups of milk with 2 cups of sugar. Place one

of the Güllaç wafers in a ver large round tray to fit

(if this is not among your kitchen equipment, use any

large dish and break the wafers into pieces) and pour

a ladleful of boiling milk over. Repeat for three of

the wafers, then spinkle half the coarsely chopped

walnuts over. Continue with the remaining chopped

walnuts over. Continue with the remaining three

wafers. Pouring ladleful of sweetened milk over each.

Pour over remaining milk and rose water.

 

Mix 2 cups and ½ cup of sugar, and gradually stir in 2

cups of milk. Place over a low heat, and stirring

constantly bring to the boil . Remove from the heat

and allow to cool, stirring occasionally.

 

Mix in the whipped cream (a packet of whipped cream

mix can be substituted) and vanilla sugar, then heat

with an electric mixer until frothy. Pour over the

Güllaç and smooth over. Decorate with strawberry

halves of pomegranates (if in season) and ground

pistachio nuts. Leave to cool in the refrigerator for

at least 4-5 hours before cutting into squares then

serve.

 

Note: If preferred plain the Güllaç may be prepared

without the cream topping.

 

 

 

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Language is an expression of thought. Everytime you speak, your mind is on

Parade Exodus 20:8-11 & Hebrews 4:9

 

 

 

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