Sekerpare is the name for semolina cookies soaked in sweet syrup. It is melting in your mouth and satisfies your sweet tooth wonderfully.
This post was originally published in 2009 and has been updated with new pictures and additional information.
What Is Sekerpare?
Very similar to lots of other Middle Eastern desserts, seker pare is a type of cookies made of semolina and soaked in a sweet syrup. Sekerpare means bit of sugar in Turkish. As the name implies, shekerpare will be the best solution for you if you have difficulty to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Ingredients For Sheqerpare
These are basically cookies made with a combination of flour and semolina. And they are already sweet and yummy as they are, even without syrup. On the other hand, you have to try them with syrup if you have a sweet tooth that is hard to satify.
The syrup made with sugar, water and lemon juice take these simple looking cookies to another level.
How To Make Seker Pare Dessert
The recipe has three folds: Making the syrup, baking the cookies and combining these two.
First, make the syrup.
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 let it cool completely.
Pro Tip: Make sure the syrup is cold while the cookies are hot.
Second, make the cookies.
Combine butter, flour, semolina, sugar, an egg and baking powder until everything holds well and you have a non-sticky dough.
Pick about a tablespoon of dough and roll them into balls. Put them in a slightly greased baking sheet leaving enough space between each as they will rise when cooked.
Place hazelnuts on their top pressing gently.
Bake them in oven for 25 minutes or until golden.
Third, combine the cookies with the syrup.
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 pieces 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.
OTHER TRADITIONAL TURKISH SWEETS
- Turkish Halva With Flour
- Homemade Tulumbe Recipe
- Sesame Candies
- Homemade Turkish Delights
- Turkish Halva With Semolina
- Semolina Cake Revani
Sekerpare
Semolina cookies soaked in sweet syrup.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 50 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients
For its dough:
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup semolina
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 125g butter
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Hazelnuts
For its syrup:
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 and 1/2 cups water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
- 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. Knead them well.
- Preheat the oven at 180C.
- Pick walnut sized pieces from dough and roll them. Put them in an oiled baking pan 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.
Notes
These cookies freeze well without the syrup. So you can store half of the cookies in the freezer after they cool completely. When you want to turn them into sheqerpare dessert, thaw them first. Make the syrup, pour the hot syrup over cold cookies and let them absorb the syrup.
Keywords: semolina cookies, sekerpare, sheqerpare recipe
I haven’t made these – I am writing a story with a character who is Turkish and needed to know if sekerpare could be made at home! Clearly they can be – perhaps I’ll have a go myself!
So interesting reading the comments and seeing how the food influences have spread around the world.
I must say I was not surprised to find out this is a sweet common in Turkey too. I live in Albania and we have this “sheqerpare” tradition to in the area of Diber (Debar in North Macedonia). However I was disappointed by the recipe. I don’t mean that this sekerpare is not good, on the contrary, I know it is delicious. But here I wanted to give you the Albanian version (which most probably fits with the old Turkish version given our mutual past). The ingredients are flour, egg yolks (a lot of them), melted butter and sugar… Yes that’s all! But the secret stands with the way it’s done! It takes up to 4 hrs to make a tray of it!! You really need to knead the flour and egg yolks for a loooong time with your hands until it becomes like flour again, thin and without stocked little balls (you’ll need to pass it through a sieve at the end). Than it’s time to mix with the melted butter (quite a lot too) until it becomes creamy. That’s it, bake it and put the syrup the same way as described in your recipe. In Albania too they try to invent short ways of making it differently, but I’m pretty sure this is the old recipe of the real Sekerpare!
Hi Dorian! Oh wow! Although I’m not surprised to hear that you have sekerpare in Albania because we share a cultural history, I didn’t know about this version of it. Sounds like it requires a lot of effort unlike this easy recipe. Bet it is even yummier! Thank you for sharing it here with us. Cheers from Turkey!
What a great post! I loved it:-) Just would like to mention that it is not a Turkish desert it is Iranian as it name is combination of two Persian words Shekar=sugar and Pare=piece. Thank you for your wammy recipe<3
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Hi Anooshka, thanks for the contribution. We make it quite often in Turkey, but I didn’t know its origin. Always love to learn the root of words and foods.
Hi there, great recipe! Have been making this for a long time as I am Albanian and this dish is also a treasured traditional dessert in our culture. We call it Sheqerpare, spelt a little different, but pronounced almost the same. Interestingly, the names in both Turkish and Albanian translate to sugar money – as the completed dessert resembles golden coins.
Thanks again for this wonderful post!