Aish as-Saraya

Crumbled white bread soaked in syrup, a layer of qishta clotted cream over it, crushed pistachio on top. The name comes from two words: aish is bread, saraya is palace, so bread of the palaces. Sweet shops keep it in the chilled display and cut it from the tray.

What goes into it

The base is bread. Today it is usually sliced sandwich bread with the crusts off, crumbled, soaked in syrup and pressed into the tray. The cream is spread over it and the crushed pistachio goes on last. Arabic sources add burnt sugar, that is caramel, and orange blossom water to the list. No egg. No butter. Most bread desserts are bound with egg; this one is not, and that is exactly why the texture stays wet and loose.

Where the name comes from

Saray is a Turkish word for palace, and the name says so plainly. The food historian Mary Isin records a 19th century Ottoman dish called saray etmegi, a milk pudding made with clotted cream and the crusts of the white loaf baked in the sultan’s kitchen. The bread was later replaced by a dry rusk known as Damascus rusk. A dictionary printed by Socrates Spiro in 1895 describes aish as-saraya as a kind of Turkish cake eaten with cream.

Whose dessert it is

Three claims sit side by side: Ottoman, Fatimid and Levantine. Arabic sources pass the argument on without closing it, and nothing on record settles one against the others. What is certain is something else. The dessert belongs to the sweet shops of Damascus and Aleppo today, one member of the family built on clotted cream.

Where to eat it

At a sweet shop, from the chilled display, cut square from the tray. Go early. Because the cream has to be fresh, a tray made in the morning rarely lasts to the evening. Plain coffee alongside works well and cuts the weight of the syrup. It is made at home too, and a home tray may carry walnut or cashew instead of pistachio.