Sekerpare is the name for semolina cookies soaked in sweet syrup. It is melting in your mouth and satisfies your sweet tooth wonderfully.
Have you seen the other Turkish foods we shared here? Sweets with syrup have an important place in our cuisine. Although baklava is the most famous one around the world, flour halvah, semolina halva and semolina cake revani are equally popular in the country.
What Is Sekerpare?
Very similar to lots of other Turkish 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
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
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 or ice cream.
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 Turkish Desserts
You might also like:
As always: If you make this recipe, let us know what you think by rating it and leaving a comment below. And post a pic on Instagram too—tag @give_recipe so we can see!
Sign up for the FREE GiveRecipe Newsletter to get the new recipes into your inbox! And stay in touch with us on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram for all the latest updates.
📖 Recipe
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
- ½ cup semolina
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 125g butter
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Hazelnuts
For its syrup:
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 and ½ 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.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 91
- Sugar: 10.1 g
- Sodium: 2.6 mg
- Fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 15.4 g
- Protein: 1.1 g
- Cholesterol: 9.1 mg
Anooshka says
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
Zerrin says
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.
Emalie says
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!
Kore says
This looks yummy. I'm thinking of making one now using your recipe. Do you think it would be nice eating it without soaking it in the syrup?
Zerrin says
Thank you Kore! They still taste great without the syrup. They are like crunchy cookies that way, but they are moist and sweeter with the syrup.
Zeinab says
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.
Zerrin says
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.
melike says
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!
zerrin says
Christy- Thanks for visiting my blog. I used granulated sugar.
christy says
These cookies look great! Did you use granulated sugar or powdered sugar?
Thank you!
Stamatia says
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...
jouhayna says
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
lisaiscooking says
These look like wonderful sweet treats! The hazelnut in the center looks great too.
Nicisme says
These look fabulous and (as you say) perfect for that sweet tooth. I could eat a bunch of them!!
Faith says
This really looks like the perfect sweet treat! These are so pretty to look at, and I bet they're incredibly delicious.
Hillary says
These look simple but delectable. Thanks for sharing!
Dee says
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 🙂
elra says
Another lovely, and tempting recipe Zerrin!