🥞 Atayef (qatayef)
Atayef are small yeasted pancakes cooked on one side only, folded around a filling and sealed into half-moons. This fried version is stuffed with mild white cheese, deep-fried until crisp and golden, then soaked in cold sugar syrup and finished with chopped pistachios. The outside is crunchy and sweet, the inside soft and stretchy. They are the classic sweet of Ramadan evenings across the Arab world.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 200 g plain flour and 2 tbsp fine semolina
- 1 tsp dried yeast, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp baking powder
- About 350 ml lukewarm water (or half milk)
- 250 g akkawi or other mild white cheese, soaked to remove salt and grated
- Syrup: 200 g sugar, 120 ml water, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp orange blossom water
- 40 g pistachios, chopped
- Vegetable oil for deep-frying
Method
- Make the syrup: boil the sugar and water for 8–10 minutes, add the lemon juice and orange blossom water and let it cool completely.
- Whisk the flour, semolina, yeast, sugar, baking powder and water into a smooth pourable batter and rest it for 30 minutes until bubbly.
- Pour tablespoons of batter onto a hot ungreased non-stick pan and cook on one side only until the top is covered in holes and dry, about 2 minutes. Cool under a cloth.
- Put a spoonful of cheese on the uncooked side of each pancake, fold into a half-moon and pinch the edges firmly to seal.
- Deep-fry at 180 °C for 3–4 minutes until golden, drain, dip straight into the cold syrup and sprinkle with pistachios.
How to make it lighter
- Bake instead of frying: brush with 1 tbsp oil and bake at 200 °C until golden — this saves most of the oil the pastry absorbs in the fryer.
- Syrup adds up fast: brush on a thin layer instead of soaking — each tablespoon of syrup is roughly 50 kcal.
- Decide on two pieces before the plate arrives, and fill some with low-fat white cheese.
History
Qatayef appear in medieval Arabic cookbooks, and the sweet is often traced to the Abbasid or Fatimid courts, though its exact origin is not known. Over the centuries it became closely tied to Ramadan: in Damascus, Cairo, Amman and Jerusalem, bakeries pour fresh atayef batter on large griddles mainly during the holy month. Families fill them with cheese or nuts and either fry them or eat them unfried.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →