Umm Ali
Egypt's national dessert, whose name means "mother of Ali" and comes with a grim thirteenth-century court legend. In cooking terms it is the simplest possible bread pudding with one crucial change: baked puff pastry stands in for the bread. Its layers absorb milk unevenly — some dissolve into cream, some stay crisp — and it is exactly that contrast that separates umm Ali from an ordinary bake.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Baking the pastry 20 min
- Milk 10 min
- Assembly 10 min
- Baking 25 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneBake the puff pastry flat
Unroll the pastry onto lined trays, prick it all over with a fork and bake in an oven preheated to 200°C for 18 minutes, until golden and thoroughly dry. The pricking keeps it flat — the aim is crisp sheets, not risen puff pastry.
Ingredients: 500 g puff pastry · 60 g pistachios · 60 g almonds · 50 g hazelnuts · 60 g raisins · 40 g desiccated coconut
Pricked and flat — it must not rise.Break the pastry by hand
Break the cooled pastry by hand into matchbox-sized pieces, without a knife. Uneven, ragged edges absorb milk at different rates, and that is what makes this dessert creamy and crisp at the same time.
Ingredients: 500 g puff pastry · 60 g pistachios · 60 g almonds · 50 g hazelnuts · 60 g raisins · 40 g desiccated coconut
Toast the nuts and mix them in
Toast the nuts and coconut in a dry pan for 4 minutes, until fragrant, and mix with the broken pastry and raisins. Transfer to a baking dish, spreading everything evenly.
Ingredients: 500 g puff pastry · 60 g pistachios · 60 g almonds · 50 g hazelnuts · 60 g raisins · 40 g desiccated coconut
Nuts toasted, mixed with the pastry and spread level.Boil the milk with sugar and condensed milk
Meanwhile, heat the oven back up to 200°C. Bring the milk to the boil with the sugar, condensed milk, vanilla and cinnamon, stirring so nothing catches — about 10 minutes. The condensed milk is not just a sugar substitute — it gives body and a fuller, milky flavour.
Ingredients: 800 ml milk · 100 g sugar · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp cinnamon
Pour over boiling milk and wait
Pour the boiling milk over the pastry and leave 5 minutes to soak in. Hot milk penetrates the pastry layers far faster than lukewarm milk, much of which would simply settle at the bottom of the dish.
Ingredients: 800 ml milk · 100 g sugar · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp cinnamon
Boiling milk soaks quickly into the pastry layers.Cover with cream and bake golden
Whip the cream lightly and spread it over the surface, then bake 20 minutes at 200°C, until golden and bubbling. Switch on the grill for the last 3 minutes to get the characteristic dark patches.
Ingredients: 250 ml whipping cream (30%) · 30 g pistachios
Serve hot, straight from the dish
Scatter with pistachios and serve immediately, hot, spooned out. As umm Ali cools it thickens and loses the contrast between creamy base and crisp top that is the best thing about it.
Ingredients: 250 ml whipping cream (30%) · 30 g pistachios
Before you start
Instead of puff pastry
Egypt also uses roqaq — a thin pastry close to filo — or simply stale croissants. Croissants work surprisingly well, since they have the same layered structure and already contain butter.
How much milk
The ratio is a matter of taste: 800 ml gives a moist pudding with a crisp top, a litre a more custardy one. Start with less; you can always add more, and excess milk cannot be removed.
Eat it the day it is made
Umm Ali keeps for a day in the fridge, but reheated puff pastry never returns to crispness. The dry elements can be prepared ahead — baked, broken pastry keeps three days in an airtight tin — and the milk added only just before baking.
