It was six years ago when this yummy dessert jumped to the top of my favorites list. I started to work and live in Eskisehir then. It was a new city to discover for me and the first thing taking my attention was, after its freezing weather, its pastry shops located all around the city. There were so many pastry shops selling various savory and sweet pastries and it was impossible for me to ignore their tasty products displayed in shop windows. As I always have a sweet tooth, I was more interested in desserts. Luckily, I wasn’t the only person who was trapped by these screaming pastry shops. I met a colleague who was new like me and we discovered the city together. We became homemates soon after we realized that we had so many common points. For one thing, both of us were blinded with the desserts posing in the pastry shops on our way home. Isn’t that enough? We tried almost all kinds by tasting one each day and this one in the picture became our favorite. Especially after dinner, one of us would go buy it while the other would brew black tea. It was the best time of the day for us if we had a movie accompanying our sekerpare and tea pleasure.
It is called sekerpare (sugar bit) in Turkish. As its name implies, it will be the best solution for you if you have difficulty to satisfy your sweet tooth. I decided to try to make it at home after marrying a man who loves sweet foods as mush as I do. Guess what? It is as tasty as the ones we used to buy.
Ingredients
All ingredients must be at room temperature. These ingredients make 50 pieces of sekerpare.
For its dough:
- 2 cups flour
- ½ cup semolina
- ½ cups sugar
- 1 egg
- 125g butter
- 1 dessert spoon baking powder
- Hazelnut
For its syrup
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 ½ cups water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
As we must let the syrup get cold before pouring it on sekerpare cookies, start with making the syrup first.
Pour water and sugar in a pot. Heat them until it boils. Let it boil about 15 minutes until it reaches the right consistency. Add lemon juice and take it from the heat. Put it aside and start preparing the cookies.
Combine butter, flour, semolina, sugar, an egg and baking powder and knead them well.
Preheat the oven at 180C.
Pick walnut sized pieces and roll them. Put them in an oiled tray leaving enough space between each as they will rise when cooked.
Place hazelnuts on their top pressing gently. Cook them in oven for 25 minutes until golden.
Pour the syrup when the cookies are still hot. You can pour it with a ladle on each piece. Wait until the cookies absorb the water. You can serve it with black tea.
Note: I make 50 piece from these ingredients, but pour the syrup on 25 of them as I put the other half in refrigerator to make it another time. When I have any unexpected guests, I just prepare the syrup and pour it hot on the cold cookies to serve them tasty sekerpare. Don’t forget the rule for pouring syrup on cookies for skerpare. If the cookies are hot, the syrup must be cold or vice versa.
28 Comments on "Sekerpare"
That these are going to be delicious I do not doubt, but they are so simple and elegant – I cannot wait to serve them. I love the glaze on top
This post is utterly for my sweet tooth, they look absolutely scrumptious
Ideal for tea time or coffee!
Cheers,
Gera
Great blog entry as usual! They look and sound delicious.
great cookies, I love how simple and easy they are to make
My sweet tooth is agreeing with me that yes, we’d like to have a bunch of these to snack on.
salam
thanks for sharing this recipe, i saw it in many blogs but your photos sound so delicious that I’ve decided to make these cookies
I wont just to ask about baking pouder: what do you mean by dessert spoon? a tspoon or tblspoon? If you can give me the baking pouder in gr, It’ll be so good for me?
Thanks for your help
Nice day
Zerrin, Şekerpare is one of the most popular deserts in Turkey, and it has a lot of incurable fans some of whom can eat about 1 kilos at a time.
I also like to eat a few after a light meal with a few glasses of Rakı. For those who like eating deserts after drinking, Şekerpare is a perfect recipe. Thank you..
Oyster- These are not regular cookies, they are beyond that with that syrup they absorb. And everyone you serve will love them.
Gera- Thank you. This is definitely the best way to satisfy our sweet tooth.
Erica- Thank you. And they taste delicious, too:)
Jessie- I can eat these even when they are just cookies, but when they absorb the syrup, they get much more yummy! Simple and satisfying!
Jenn- A bunch of these may not be enough
Jouhayna- Happy to hear you loved sekerpare. In fact, dessert spoon is something between tspoon and tblspoon. We eat desserts with it. And it takes about 5g baking powder. Hope this is helpful for you and hope you love it when you try.
Erkin- I may be one of those fans, I can eat sekerpare every single day! As you say, some people crave for dessert after drinking, and I recommend them to have sekerpare. It goes very well at any time.
this look so good! i love the idea of the cold cookie with warm syrup. divine!
salam
thanks a lot for your answer, am going to do sekerpare soon
kisses
These are so unique with the syrup over the top. They look soft and sweet and incredibly yummy!
These look like such wonderful sweet treats! I love the whole hazelnuts on top!
I LOVE the use of semolina for that little gritty texture…AWESOME!
These syrup cookies look so divine!
I can see why they jumped to the top of your favourites list!
Another lovely, and tempting recipe Zerrin!
I’ve never heard of sekerpares, but they look amazing.
This reminds me of the Indian sweet (gulab jamun?) that’s doused in a syrup. Mmm…
Thanks for stopping by Zerrin. Hope to see more of you
I love those cookies! I saw them the first time at Angela food love blog and when they come out, they are so crunchy with the mix of the semolina, they soon became one of my favorites. This new version (to me) with the syrup is something I should try next time I bake them. Angela from the Food love blog uses almonds instead of Hazelnuts. I can’t wait to try them with Hazelnuts.
These look simple but delectable. Thanks for sharing!
This really looks like the perfect sweet treat! These are so pretty to look at, and I bet they’re incredibly delicious.
These look fabulous and (as you say) perfect for that sweet tooth. I could eat a bunch of them!!
These look like wonderful sweet treats! The hazelnut in the center looks great too.
here is the link to my blog if you wont to see my sekerpare
http://jouhayna.canalblog.com/archives/2009/10/15/15441553.html
kisses
Oooo these look so tasty! Greeks made a syrup-soaked cookie like this too, but it’s dark with spices, and covered in walnut pieces (melomakarona, or finikia)…but these look much less fussy and I just can’t resist semolina + syrup (even after my last semolina-halva disaster!) If I have enough semolina left, I’ll have to try these on the weekend…
These cookies look great! Did you use granulated sugar or powdered sugar?
Thank you!
Christy- Thanks for visiting my blog. I used granulated sugar.
Hi, tried the recipe, but I reckon 125 gr butter isnt sufficient for SEKERPARE dough for it to become smooth as you are showing in these photos. Mine was very hard to get it together and looking smooth like yours so I had to add 1 more egg which made the recipe 2 eggs and cookies didnt spread out like they should in your photos!
I used the butter at room temperature and it was still hard to get the dough together, you may check your measurements again!
Melike- It’s so interesting as this is what I make often with these measurements. I spend some time on combining the ingredients to make that soft dough. I mean, at the beginning it seems it’s impossible to combine them, but after kneading it some time, it gets combined and softer. Maybe you should use powdered sugar, it may work better. Maybe the problem is about the cups we use. My cup is about 180 or 200 gr.
It’s really amazing and delicious. Very simple and quick to serve for guests. Thanks a lot for the the recipes. I did it and the result was marvelous.