Atayef Asafeer
Atayef, Katayef or Qatayef are delicious Middle Eastern pancakes made with simple ingredients and stuffed with a variety of delicious fillings. They are a very popular dessert in the Middle Eastern cuisine that can be enjoyed anytime but typically served in the holy month of Ramadan.
Atayef Asafeer or Asafeeri refers to the chilled bite sized version, traditionally filled with fresh ashta, dipped in ground pistachios and drizzled with rose simple syrup. Unlike regular atayef that are traditionally stuffed with cheese or nuts and then fried or baked, no additional cooking is required for atayef asafeer as they are served cold.
Besides the traditional atayef asafeer filled with ashta and dipped in crushed pistachios, I love to make my nutella stuffed asafeer dipped in crushed hazelnut. I've been making this combination for over 15 years now and they are always a great hit! This year, I decided to add one more flavor to these asafeer - biscoff cookie spread dipped in crushed lotus biscuits! They are so good they'll definitely be making a come back soon!
Atayef Asafeer
Atayef Dough Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina
1 tsp instant yeast
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp sugar
3 cups warm water
Directions
Using a blender or immersion blender - mix all the dry ingredients and the water until well combined. Unlike pancakes, lumps are not welcome here!
Let rest for 15 minutes.
Heat a griddle or non stick pan on low-medium heat.
Pour the batter to form small circles
This dough recipe is used for traditional atayef and for atayef asafeer, just make the 'pancakes' bigger to hold in all the delicious fillings of traditional atayef.
Fillings
Ashta dipped in Crushed Pistachios - check out my easy, no cook, 3-ingredeint only ashta recipe.
Nutella & Crushed Hazelnuts
Biscoff cookie spread & Crushed Lotus biscuits
Fold each atayef dough in half and press down on one side only to seal then fill from the other end with your choice of filling then dip in nuts or biscuits.
Chill in the fridge until it's time to serve. If filling with ashta, serve with rose simple syrup. Both nutella and biscoff cookie spread are sweet enough.
