Halawet el jibn
A dessert in which the dough is made of cheese — mozzarella melted into semolina cooked in sweetened water forms an elastic white mass that is rolled out like pastry and wrapped around cream. The whole difficulty is temperature: the mass is pliable only while warm. Once cool it hardens and cracks, so you work fast and in batches.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Syrup 10 min
- Ashta cream 15 min
- Cheese dough 15 min
- Rolling 30 min
- Chilling 60 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMake the syrup and cool it
Bring the sugar and water to the boil and boil for 8 minutes, take it off the heat, stir in the lemon juice and orange blossom water and cool. The syrup does two jobs: it is the lubricant on which you roll out the dough and the glaze for the finished rolls.
Ingredients: 300 g sugar · 200 ml water · ½ pcs lemon · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Cook a thick ashta cream
Slake the cornflour in cold milk, add the cream and sugar and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens (about 8 minutes), then cook over low heat for 3 minutes more. Take off the heat and stir in the rose water. The cream must be very thick — it is rolled inside thin dough and a loose one simply runs out. Cool with film pressed onto the surface, ideally in the fridge.
Ingredients: 400 ml milk · 200 ml whipping cream (30%) · 45 g cornflour · 40 g sugar · 1 tsp rose water
Melt the cheese with semolina over low heat
Boil the water with the sugar, add the semolina and cook 3 minutes, then add the grated mozzarella and stir over low heat for about 5 minutes, until the cheese melts and the mass pulls into long strands behind the spoon. High heat splits the cheese into fat and rubber.
Ingredients: 400 g mozzarella · 120 g semolina · 150 ml water · 60 g sugar
The mass pulls into long strands — it is ready.Roll it out on a syrup-brushed worktop
Turn half the hot mass onto a worktop generously brushed with syrup (keep the rest covered in the pan) and, with a syrup-brushed pin, roll it into a rectangle 3 mm thick. Syrup replaces flour here: flour would dry the surface and the mass would crack as you roll it up.
Ingredients: 400 g mozzarella · 120 g semolina · 150 ml water · 60 g sugar
Worktop and pin in syrup, never in flour.Cut strips and roll them around the cream
Cut the rectangle into 8 cm strips, pipe a line of cream along one long edge and roll each strip into a long cylinder. Repeat with the second half of the mass. Work fast and in batches — after five minutes the mass cools and stops rolling; warm it briefly then.
Ingredients: 400 ml milk · 200 ml whipping cream (30%) · 45 g cornflour · 40 g sugar · 1 tsp rose water
Cream along the edge, rolled in one movement.Cut, chill and scatter with pistachio
Cut the rolls into pieces of about 6 cm (about 48 in all) and arrange on a plate. Chill for at least an hour so the cream firms, then pour over the rest of the syrup, sprinkle with rose water and scatter with ground pistachio. Serve cool — at room temperature the cheese dough softens and the rolls flatten.
Ingredients: 60 g pistachios · 1 tsp rose water
Before you start
The cheese must be dry and mild
Traditionally it is made with akkawi cheese, soaked in water for a few hours to remove the salt. Block mozzarella sold for pizza is the best available substitute — but the kind packed in brine will not work, as it releases water and the mass breaks.
When the mass cracks
It means it has cooled or has too little syrup. Scrape it back into the pan, warm it gently with a spoonful of syrup and work it — it returns to pliability without a trace. This can be repeated several times.
Eat it the same day
Halawet el jibn is at its best a few hours after making. By the next day the cheese dough firms up in the fridge and loses the stretch that is the most interesting thing about this dessert.