Kahi with Geymar
The quintessential Baghdad breakfast pastry, genuinely tied to a real café culture built specifically around kahi-and-geymar breakfast stalls. Real kahi stacks and butter-bastes filo-style layers, baked until crisp and flaky, served with warm sugar syrup and geymar, a clotted cream traditionally made from slow-simmered buffalo milk, Iraq's own cousin of Turkish kaymak. A home version made with simmered whole milk and heavy cream is a realistic, honest substitute for genuine buffalo-milk geymar, worth naming as an adaptation rather than presenting as fully traditional.
VegetarianDessert
⚠ Contains: Gluten, Dairy. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
Ingredients
- 1 package filo pastry
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk
Steps
- Simmer the whole milk and heavy cream together very gently for 1.5-2 hours until thickened, then chill overnight to set into geymar.
- Layer sheets of filo pastry, brushing each with melted butter, and stack into a bundle.
- Bake at 200°C/400°F until golden and crisp, about 15-20 minutes.
- Make a simple syrup by dissolving the sugar in water and simmering briefly.
- Serve the warm pastry drizzled with syrup and topped with a generous spoonful of geymar.