Desserts from around the world
Sweets, from biscuits with tea to festival dishes made once a year.
Sugar is often not the main sweetener in the world's desserts: dates, honey, grape syrup or condensed milk do the work, and substituting sugar gives a different flavour and a different texture.
Many of these are tied to a date — a spring festival, a fast, a wedding. Where that is so, the recipe says which day the dish belongs to and why it looks the way it does.
57 dishes
- Afghan biscuitsNew Zealand
Dense chocolate biscuits with cornflakes, under icing and half a walnut.
45 min · Easy
- AlfajoresArgentina
Two crumbly cornflour biscuits joined with dulce de leche and rolled in coconut.
75 min · Medium
- Anzac biscuitsAustralia
Oat biscuits on golden syrup and bicarbonate, without eggs, keeping for weeks.
38 min · Easy
- ApfelstrudelAustria
Apples with cinnamon and raisins in a dough stretched until it is transparent. It is pulled by hand, never rolled.
105 min · Takes practice
- BaklavaTurkey
Forty layers of yufka with pistachio, soaked in syrup. Hot baklava takes cold syrup, and only that way round.
120 min · Takes practice
- Baku pakhlavaAzerbaijan
Diamonds of eight layers of dough with a nut filling, under a saffron syrup.
145 min · Takes practice
- BallokumeAlbania
Cornmeal biscuits from Elbasan, beaten by hand in a wooden bowl for the spring festival.
75 min · Medium
- Bint al-sahnYemen
A many-layered enriched bread brushed with ghee, drenched in honey and scattered with nigella.
115 min · Takes practice
- Black Forest gateauGermany
Chocolate sponge soaked in kirsch, with whipped cream and sour cherries.
110 min · Takes practice
- BuchtySlovakia
Yeast buns with plum jam or curd, baked packed together so their sides fuse.
135 min · Medium
- Butter tartsCanada
Shortcrust tartlets with a butter, sugar and syrup filling, runny or set.
67 min · Medium
- ChebakiaMorocco
Flower-shaped biscuits deep-fried and steeped in honey with sesame.
150 min · Takes practice
- Cherry varenykyUkraine
Dumplings of whole cherries and sugar. The juice stays inside if the fruit is tossed in starch first.
65 min · Medium
- Crème brûléeFrance
A yolk custard baked in a water bath under a lid of burnt sugar.
65 min · Medium
- DarabeelKuwait
Kuwaiti buns of date paste and cardamom, rolled into spirals.
120 min · Medium
- Dobos torteHungary
Five thin sponge layers with chocolate buttercream under a caramel lid.
135 min · Takes practice
- FrituleCroatia
Small doughnuts with raisins, citrus zest and rakija, deep-fried.
55 min · Easy
- GataArmenia
A layered sweet bread with khoriz, a dry filling of flour, butter and sugar.
115 min · Medium
- ImqaretMalta
Maltese pastry diamonds with an aniseed date filling, deep-fried.
110 min · Medium
- KamaEstonia
A dessert of roasted mixed-grain flour stirred into kefir. Estonian breakfast and summer pudding at once.
10 min · Easy
- KanelbullarSweden
Cinnamon buns knotted rather than rolled. The cardamom in the dough matters more than the cinnamon inside.
135 min · Medium
- Key lime pieUnited States
A condensed milk and lime filling on a cracker crumb base, set by acid rather than heat.
50 min · Easy
- KleichaIraq
Biscuits of date paste and cardamom, rolled into a log and cut into slices.
85 min · Medium
- KohukeEstonia
A curd bar in chocolate glaze, the Estonian dessert from the fridge.
50 min · Medium
- KunafaEgypt
Fine shredded pastry with a cheese filling, baked and drenched in sugar syrup.
80 min · Medium
- Kyiv cakeUkraine
Two meringue layers with nuts, filled with a charlotte buttercream.
240 min · Takes practice
- LamingtonsAustralia
Cubes of sponge dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in desiccated coconut.
75 min · Medium
- Leche flanPhilippines
A dense caramel custard made on yolks alone, steamed in a metal mould.
70 min · Medium
- Liège wafflesBelgian cuisine
Dense yeasted waffles from a stiff dough with pearl sugar that caramelises on the outside.
125 min · Medium
- LuqaimatUnited Arab Emirates
Crisp balls of yeasted batter in date syrup. The Ramadan sweet of the Gulf.
95 min · Medium
- MakroudAlgeria
Semolina diamonds with a date filling, fried and steeped in honey.
105 min · Medium
- MalabiIsrael
A milk pudding set with cornflour and rose water, under a sweet syrup and nuts.
30 min · Easy
- MelktertSouth Africa
A milk tart with cinnamon: a barely-egged custard filling in a shortcrust base.
80 min · Easy
- MuceniciMoldova
Yeast figures of eight glazed with honey and walnuts for the day of the Forty Martyrs.
125 min · Medium
- Omani halwaOman
A chewy halwa of starch, rosewater and saffron, stirred two hours in a cauldron.
155 min · Takes practice
- PapanașiRomania
Curd doughnuts shaped as a ring with a ball on top, with soured cream and jam.
60 min · Medium
- Pastel de nataPortugal
Flaky pastry cases of custard baked in extreme heat until the surface blisters black.
55 min · Takes practice
- PavlovaNew Zealand
A meringue with a crisp shell and a marshmallow centre, under whipped cream and kiwifruit.
115 min · Medium
- Pineapple cakeTaiwan
Squares of shortcrust with a dense filling of reduced pineapple and winter melon.
180 min · Takes practice
- PoffertjesNetherlands
Tiny yeasted pancakes of buckwheat and wheat flour, served with butter and icing sugar.
90 min · Easy
- PoticaSlovenia
A yeasted roll with a walnut filling, coiled into a ring. Slovenian baking for every celebration.
150 min · Takes practice
- RellenitosGuatemala
Balls of ripe plantain purée filled with sweetened black beans and chocolate.
90 min · Medium
- RisalamandeDenmark
A cold rice pudding with whipped cream and almonds, under a hot cherry sauce.
85 min · Easy
- Rye bread layer dessertLatvia
Layers of dark rye breadcrumbs, whipped cream and cranberry jam.
40 min · Easy
- SachertorteAustria
A dense chocolate sponge with apricot jam under a mirror chocolate glaze.
120 min · Takes practice
- ŠakotisLithuania
A spiked tree cake baked layer by layer on a turning spit over a fire.
135 min · Takes practice
- SernikPoland
A dense curd cheesecake on a shortcrust base, made with twaróg rather than cream cheese.
115 min · Medium
- SklandrausisLatvia
A rye pastry case with two layers of purée, potato and carrot, dusted with cinnamon.
90 min · Medium
- SkolebrødNorway
A cardamom-scented bun with custard in the centre, icing and desiccated coconut.
80 min · Medium
- Sticky toffee puddingUnited Kingdom
A moist date sponge under a hot sauce of cream and dark sugar.
65 min · Easy
- ŠtrukljiSlovenia
A roll of thin dough with a curd filling, boiled in cloth and cut into rounds.
115 min · Takes practice
- Swedish apple cakeSweden
An apple cake with cinnamon under a crisp butter crumble, served with vanilla sauce.
75 min · Easy
- Sweet cream of beansDominican Republic
A sweet dessert cream of red beans with coconut milk, sweet potato and biscuits.
115 min · Easy
- Tarte TatinFrance
An upside-down apple tart: the apples caramelise at the bottom, the pastry goes on top and becomes the base.
90 min · Medium
- TiramisuItaly
Savoiardi in coffee under a mascarpone cream. No baking, but two places where it can go wrong.
30 min · Medium
- TrdelníkCzechia
A ribbon of yeasted dough wound round a spit, baked and rolled in sugar and nuts.
110 min · Medium
- TufahijeBosnia and Herzegovina
Apples poached in syrup and filled with walnuts under whipped cream.
60 min · Easy