Top 5 Middle Eastern Sweets to Try This Year: A Delicious Journey into Baklava and Beyond

The Middle East has one of the most diverse sweet traditions in the world — and most of it remains unknown outside the Arab community. Here are five sweets worth knowing.

1. Baklava

The most recognized Middle Eastern sweet globally. Layers of paper-thin phyllo pastry, a nut filling (typically pistachio or walnut), and a fragrant honey or sugar syrup. The key variables are the nut choice, syrup flavor (rose water, orange blossom, or plain), and the cut. A mixed assortment is the best way to explore the full range in one order.

2. Maamoul

A shortbread cookie pressed into decorative molds and filled with dates, pistachios, or walnuts. Maamoul is the defining sweet of Eid across the Arab world — made in large batches, given as gifts, and eaten with tea. The date version is the most traditional; the pistachio version is the most rich. Available from our sweets collection.

3. Awamat

Awamat are the Middle East's answer to doughnut holes — small, deep-fried dough balls with a crispy exterior and a honey or sugar syrup drizzle. A Ramadan iftar staple across Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Light enough to eat a dozen without noticing.

4. Kleicha

Iraq's national cookie. Kleicha is a spiral pastry cookie made from a lightly sweetened dough wrapped around a dense Medjool date paste with cardamom. Eaten at every Eid, given to guests, and consumed with tea daily in Iraqi households. Outside the Iraqi diaspora, it's almost impossible to find — which makes it worth trying.

5. Zainab Fingers

Zainab Fingers are long, slender pastry tubes — deep-fried until golden, then soaked in sugar syrup. The outside shatters; the inside stays soft. A celebration staple across Iraq and the Arab world that rarely makes it onto Western radar.