Baklava And Hadef - Two Middle Eastern Sweets

Even though Baklava and Hadef look the same and share mostly the same ingredients, they are two Middle Eastern sweets made in very different ways and they taste considerably differently. Contrary to Baklava which is made from phyllo dough mixed with butter, Hadef is made from an oily semolina dough.

Baklava is a Middle Eastern pastry popular worldwide. It is made of dozens of very thin layers of dough covering a thick layer of nuts from top and bottom. It is topped with sugar syrup as well, which gives it a sweet taste. Pistachios, walnuts, pine nuts, and cashews are used for the nuts filling. It is usually cut in either diamond or square shape. Baklava dates a few hundred years and is considered one of the oldest and most authentic Middle Eastern desserts.

Hadef, on the other hand, is a type of Middle Eastern sweets that has the same shape of Baklava and is filled with walnuts just like Baklava, but that is made from a very different type of dough. Hadef was invented in the city of Beirut, Lebanon and was very famous there for a long time. However, because it is very time consuming to prepare and because it requires a very high of skills and craftsmanship, its popularity has diminished and is has been eventually replaced by much easier to prepare, walnuts filled Baklava.

Baklava is made from dough that consists primarily of flour and water and is called phyllo dough. The dough is kneaded extensively to form very thin layers than are then stacked on top of each other to form the final form of dough used in Baklava.

Hadef, on the other hand, is made from semolina dough that is mixed with large amounts of oil. The dough is kneaded by hand using very difficult and special techniques to render it extremely think, considerably thinner than the phyllo dough used in Baklava.

The phyllo dough is used in many types of pastries that constitute the family of assorted Baklava. Besides the original Baklava piece, which is the most famous among all, phyllo dough is also used in Asabi (also called Fingers), kol Weshkor (also called Roses), Bukaj, and Iswara (also called bracelets). All these pastries share the same ingredients, namely the same dough and nuts, and are made into different shapes.
Hadef dough, on the other hand, is only used in making Hadef. It is considerably more time consuming to prepare than Phyllo dough because it need much more kneading that phyllo dough.

While Baklava is today flourishing and its demand is increasing all over the world, Hadef has become an almost extinct type of Middle Eastern sweets whose skills and craftsmanship are diminishing year after year.

By: Katy K

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Lean more about Baklava and Hadef by visiting Al Bohsali Sweet's website. They offer a large selection of Middle Eastern sweets online.