Turkish Desserts to Try: 10 Sweet Treats and Where to Eat Them

Turkey takes its sweets seriously, and after years of eating my way around Istanbul I can tell you the difference between a tray of baklava bought at the airport and a fresh piece pulled from the case at a proper shop is night and day. So here are the Turkish desserts to try, what each one actually tastes like, and the places I’d send a friend for the real version rather than the tourist-trap one.

If you have a sweet tooth, you are in luck. Turkish dessert culture is huge, split roughly into syrup-soaked pastries (think baklava) and gentle milk puddings (think sütlaç), with a few oddballs in between. You’ll find these everywhere, from a corner pudding shop (muhallebici) to grand 19th-century confectioners. This is just one slice of the food scene here, so if you want the savoury side too, my guide to the famous foods of Istanbul covers that ground.

What are the best Turkish desserts to try?

The short answer: baklava, künefe, sütlaç, kazandibi, güllaç, şekerpare, semolina halva, ekmek kadayıfı, Turkish ice cream, and Turkish delight. That’s ten, and it’s a genuinely representative list rather than a random ten. Below I’ll walk through each, in roughly the order I’d hand them to a first-timer.

A quick note on how Turks classify their sweets, because it helps you order. Desserts fall into two big families: “şerbetli” (sherbet, meaning syrup-soaked) and “sütlü” (milky). Knowing which camp you’re in tells you a lot before the first bite. Syrup desserts are intense and sticky. Milk desserts are mellow and creamy. Most people lean hard toward one camp, and that’s fine.

Baklava: the one everyone knows, and worth the hype

Baklava is the headliner for a reason. Paper-thin layers of phyllo, crushed pistachios or walnuts, butter, and syrup, baked until the top shatters when you press a fork into it. The best comes from Gaziantep in the southeast, where pistachios grow, and the top Istanbul shops are essentially Gaziantep families who set up in the city.

My honest pick: Karaköy Güllüoğlu, the single original branch down by the water in Karaköy. It has been run by the Güllü family (their roots go back to the 1800s in Gaziantep) and the fıstıklı (pistachio) baklava there is the benchmark I judge everything else against. At the time of writing, expect to pay roughly 50 to 80 TL per piece, and they sell by weight if you want a box to take home. Hafız Mustafa 1864, with branches all over Eminönü and Sultanahmet, is the other big name and runs fun variations like chocolate and double-pistachio. For more on this dessert specifically, I wrote a whole piece on where to find the best baklava in Istanbul, and if you’d rather make it yourself, there’s an easy homemade baklava recipe too.

Künefe: hot, stringy cheese under crunchy pastry

If I could only send you to eat one dessert, it might be this. Künefe is shredded kadayıf pastry packed around a layer of mild, unsalted cheese, baked in a shallow copper pan until the bottom goes deep golden, then drowned in syrup and showered with crushed pistachio. It arrives hot, the cheese pulls into long strings, and the contrast between the crisp top and the molten middle is the whole point.

It comes from Hatay, near the Syrian border, so look for Hatay-style places. The künefe shops clustered around Karaköy are reliable, and a glass of Turkish tea on the side keeps the sweetness in check. Order it the moment it comes off the oven. Künefe that has been sitting goes sad and rubbery fast.

Şekerpare: small, soft, and very sweet

Şekerpare are little semolina-based cookies, soft rather than crunchy, baked and then soaked in syrup so they drink it up and stay moist. The name roughly means “piece of sweetness,” and they earn it. These are sugary even by Turkish standards, so they pair best with a strong, bitter coffee. If you really love syrup desserts, put these high on your list.

Sütlaç: Turkish rice pudding, often baked on top

Another nice Turkish dessert made with milk is sütlaç, the local rice pudding. Some places serve it cold and runny, others bake the top so it gets a freckled brown skin (fırın sütlaç). Both are good. It’s lighter than the syrup desserts and a smart choice when you’ve already had a big meal. Pudding shops do the best versions, and there’s a simple Turkish rice pudding recipe on the site if you want to recreate it at home.

Kazandibi: the milk pudding with a burnt bottom

Kazandibi is the clever cousin of sütlaç. The name means “bottom of the pot,” and that’s literal: the milk pudding is deliberately caramelised on the base until it scorches, then rolled so the burnt layer faces out. It sounds strange, but the faint bitterness against the creamy custard is what makes it special. It’s also famously made with a touch of chicken breast, finely shredded into the milk (you won’t taste it, I promise). This is one of the great milk desserts to try if you want something a local would order.

Güllaç: the rosewater dessert of Ramadan

Güllaç is the one to seek out if you’re in Istanbul during or around Ramadan, because that’s when it’s everywhere. Wafer-thin sheets of corn-starch pastry are soaked in warm milk and rosewater, layered with walnuts, then topped with pomegranate seeds and pistachios. It’s pale, delicate, barely sweet, and floral. The recipe traces back to Ottoman palace kitchens, where it was made for the sultan’s table during the fast. After a heavy iftar meal it’s exactly right, light and refreshing where baklava would be too much.

Semolina halva: simple, toasty, comforting

Semolina halva (irmik helvası) is a lesser-known option for visitors but a deeply traditional one. Semolina is toasted in butter with pine nuts until it smells nutty, then milk and syrup go in and it sets into a soft, crumbly, slightly grainy sweet. Turkish families make it to mark occasions, both happy and sad, so it carries some weight. The flavour is gentle and almost cosy. Order it warm if you can.

Ekmek kadayıfı: the bread pudding that drinks syrup

Ekmek kadayıfı is a dried, bread-like cake that is rehydrated in syrup until it turns glossy and translucent, then served with a thick blob of kaymak (clotted cream) on top. It’s rich, so it’s best shared. The cream cuts the sweetness, and some places offer it with a scoop of ice cream instead. If you see it on a pudding-shop counter, it’s a safe, satisfying bet.

Künefe’s cold rival: Turkish ice cream (dondurma)

Turkish ice cream, dondurma, is famous for two things: it stretches like taffy and it barely melts. That texture comes from salep (ground orchid root) and mastic resin, and the densest style, Maraş dondurması, is so firm that some shops serve it with a knife and fork. The home of the showy version is Kahramanmaraş in the south.

You’ll meet it first through the street vendors on İstiklal Avenue and around Ortaköy, the ones in embroidered waistcoats who flip the cone around and tease you before finally handing it over. It’s good fun, just expect a small performance before you get to eat. For a more serious scoop, sit-down chains like Mado make excellent salep-based versions. There’s also a homemade dondurma recipe if you want to attempt the stretch yourself.

Turkish delight (lokum): the souvenir you’ll actually eat

Last but far from least: Turkish delight, or lokum. Soft, jelly-like cubes dusted in powdered sugar or starch, in flavours from rosewater and lemon to pomegranate, and stuffed versions packed with pistachio, walnut, or hazelnut. The double-roasted (çifte kavrulmuş) pistachio kind is the one to splurge on.

For quality, skip the rainbow tubs in the Grand Bazaar tourist lanes and buy from a proper confectioner. Hafız Mustafa 1864, founded in 1864 in Bahçekapı, is the classic choice and ships well, which makes it the edible souvenir most likely to survive your suitcase intact. I keep a running list of the best Turkish delight shops in Istanbul if you want a box worth carrying home.

How should you eat Turkish desserts?

Almost always with a hot drink, and almost never alone. The standard move is a syrup dessert plus tea or coffee, because the bitterness cuts the sugar and lets you taste more than one piece. Turkish coffee is the classic match for baklava and şekerpare. If you want to do it properly, here’s where to find the best Turkish coffee in Istanbul.

Timing matters too. Künefe and dondurma are best eaten on the spot. Baklava and lokum keep for days and travel well. Milk desserts like sütlaç and kazandibi are at their best the same day they’re made, so eat them where you buy them. And if all this sweetness has you wanting to balance the day with something savoury, the street food worth trying in Istanbul is a good place to start.

Final thoughts

You can’t go wrong working through this list, but if you only have room for a few, my order would be: künefe while it’s hot, a piece of pistachio baklava from Karaköy Güllüoğlu, and a box of double-roasted lokum to take home. Save dondurma for a warm afternoon on İstiklal when the vendor’s tricks are part of the fun. Turkey has dozens more sweets beyond these ten, but get through this lineup and you’ll understand exactly why Turkish dessert culture has the reputation it does. For the bigger picture of what to eat here, my overview of Istanbul’s best foods and drinks ties it all together.