Make these climate-friendly stuffed pancakes for Eid al-Fitr
Janelle Hama teaches us a thing or two about atayef
The holy month of Ramadan is drawing to a close, so it’s high time — high time!! — to make atayef, a half-moon treat that’s synonymous with this time of year. These little semolina pancakes are stuffed with a walnutty filling, folded over, baked, and brushed with a rosewater simple syrup that makes them the teensiest bit floral, like the tentative Pennsylvania spring peeping out of my parents’ snow-flecked backyard. Atayef are great for a crowd, appropriately resemble a receding eclipse, and — guess what! — they’re naturally plant-based.
Last month I began a scavenger hunt for desserts that come by their plant-based bona fides naturally — ones that aren’t veganized, but rather have always been vegan, since sweetness immemorial. It’s a fairly tall order, since seemingly every dessert and its mother contains butter or eggs, which are among the most carbon-intensive ingredients used in baking. (Butter in particular is more carbon-intensive than poultry and pork, gasp! It’s no beef, but still!)
Even though I’m not remotely vegan (my dream fridge contains exclusively cheese and caramel cake), I’m all for vegan desserts that rock, and even for snarfing them preferentially here and there. Savvy veganizations of otherwise eggy confections are part of the equation (do you subscribe to my buddy
’s newsletter yet?), and naturally vegan desserts are the other. My hunch? There’s more of these OG plant-based treats than we think.Enter: Atayef. As Janelle Hama, the Sydney-based blogger behind Plant Based Folk tells us in the Q&A below, atayef is the semi-rare Lebanese dessert that skips butter, eggs, and cheese. It’s basically a thin pancake wrapped around a nutty filling scented with cinnamon, and it’s a perfect fast-breaking treat for Eid al-Fitr. Read on for Janelle’s tips for atayef success and to get the recipe she’s kindly sharing!
Q&A with Janelle Hama on ayatef and vegan Lebanese desserts
As per usual, this Q&A has been lightly edited and condensed.
Janelle! Tell me — what’s your favorite thing about atayef?
For a dessert to exist that looks really complicated, and then to be super simple, I think is just the best thing in the world. I’ve also found that I can play around with atayef. Rather than use traditional white sugar, I can change it up and use coconut sugar or maple syrup, or things like that. It also invokes memories of my son being young — that's when I first was introduced to it.
I know you said it’s a pretty simple dessert, but: Any special tips for success?
I think there are two, the first one being the actual pancakes. They're not traditional Western-type pancakes where they’re fluffy, dense, and thick. These pancakes are quite thin, light, and small. The batter is thin, and uses yeast; and the trick is to pay attention to it to make sure you give it enough time to rest but not so much that it over-bubbles. And you’re making an open pancake, so know that you won’t flip them.
The second possible hardship is when you fill the pancake and then close it in a half-moon to encapsulate the filling. You need to make sure you leave a perimeter when making the pancakes so you can pinch them shut. If you don't leave the perimeter, the pancake is going to open during the baking process.
One of the things that’s interesting about your recipe is that it’s vegan because you’ve chosen an atayef filling that’s naturally vegan. But not all of them are. Tell us about the different atayef fillings.
The ‘cooked’ versions of atayef are baked or fried, and they have two fillings: Either a walnuts-and-sugar filling or a type of cheese. Those cheeses are white cheeses, kind of like a sweet mozzerella, or akawi, a white cheese from the Levant region that’s also heavily used in sweets and desserts. I’ve seen some people use cream cheese for not being able to access those other types of cheeses. A third version of atayef is unbaked. It’s half-filled (as in it’s open on one side). For its filling, you can use what’s called an ashta, and that’s normally made from curds or a ricotta that’s been mixed through with a thickened milk. And then you’ve got nuts sprinkled on top. That’s a different experience when eating atayef; it’s very beautiful and light. Most people tend to eat atayef with the cheese filling, but I prefer them with the nut filling.
Are there lots of naturally vegan Lebanese desserts, or is atayef kind of a rarity in that sense?
Among Lebanese desserts — from phyllo pastry desserts like baklawa and knafeh to puddings — there’s a lot of cheeses and dairy and eggs involved in the pastries, while the puddings are where you find more vegan stuff. There’s amhiyea, which is made with a sweetened wheat berry, or meghli, which is normally served for the birth of a baby, and that’s a spiced rice pudding. So traditionally, you don’t find a lot of vegan desserts.
But we do have some cakes that are vegan or could be made vegan, and that’s a preference from family to family as to how to make it. One that comes to mind is sfouf, which has a turmeric-semolina version and a molasses-semolina version. Sfouf is normally made with water. You can use milk, but I’ve always used water infused with anise seed. There’s just something about that cake! When it bakes, the edges all caramelize and get really crispy-crunchy, and the inside is so soft.
You also veganize a ton of Lebanese desserts. Is there one you especially love?
The baklawa. I could not believe that it turned out so well without all the butter. It baked everything properly, and soaked into the phyllo dough really well, and when I cut it it held up really well. Using vegetable ghee, people didn’t even know the difference.
Janelle’s atayef recipe
Reprinted with permission from Plant Based Folk
Ingredients
Filling
125g walnuts, crushed
1 tablespoon dried coconut, heaped
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon coconut sugar (or granulated sugar)
Simple syrup
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon rose water
Atayef pancake batter
1 cup flour
¼ cup fine semolina flour
1 tablespoon dry active yeast
1 teaspoon coconut sugar (or granulated sugar)
1½ cup warm water
1 pinch salt
1 tablespoon neutral oil, for brushing before baking
1 tablespoon crushed pistachios, for garnish (optional)
Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
Prepare filling: Crush the walnuts into small pieces, then combine with cinnamon, coconut and coconut sugar. Set aside.
Prepare the simple syrup (attar): Place sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, add rose water and add lemon. Mix briefly to combine, then set aside to cool.
Prepare atayef pancakes: In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients to form a batter. Heat a nonstick pan over low-medium heat. Pour a small amount of batter into the pan to form a pancake. Allow pancake to cook until bubbles/holes have formed and there is no more wet batter on the surface, approximately 2 minutes. Transfer from the pan to a plate covered with a dishtowel or damp paper towel (to keep the pancakes moist).
Assemble the atayef: Place a pancake in your hand with the face up. Pinch one end to help create the start of a pouch. Place 2-3 teaspoons of filling in the center of the pancake. Begin pinching the perimeter of the pancake together until it is completely sealed. Place stuffed pancake onto parchment paper lined baking tray. Repeat until all done. Brush each stuffed atayef with oil, then bake until golden brown and crispy, approximately 20-25 min.
Allow to cool for about 10 minutes, then brush with simple syrup and garnish with pistachios. Serve immediately.
These look amazing!