Balkaimak

Balkaimak (балқаймақ, Balkaimak, Balqaimaq) is a Kazakh sweet made with dairy. The best-known form is made by adding honey or sugar to thick cream and warming it with a small amount of wheat flour until it turns thick and smooth. It is served in a bowl and eaten with baursak, a fried bread, dipped into it, or set out at the tea table.

The name combines bal (бал), meaning honey, and qaimaq (қаймақ), meaning cream from milk. However, the name balkaimak does not always refer to just one kind of honeyed cream. It is also used for sweet foods made from concentrated milk, and the ingredients and consistency vary.

How it differs from Turkish “bal-kaymak”

The similarly named Turkish bal-kaymak combines honey with rich milk cream and is served with bread at breakfast. By contrast, the well-known form of Kazakh balkaimak is made by mixing honey and flour into cream and heating it until it thickens. The ingredients are similar, but the way they are finished differs. Rather than treating them as a single recipe because the names are alike, the differences become clear by looking at which region’s way of eating is involved.

Gently warming cream and flour

Balkaimak made with cream is finished in a smooth, cohesive state while keeping the richness of the milk. The ingredients are put in a pot and warmed over low heat. In the form where honey or sugar is added and wheat flour is sprinkled in a little at a time while stirring, the whole mixture is warmed evenly as it thickens.

In this form, dairy makes up most of the mixture, and the wheat flour is kept to a small amount. For example, one method uses 900 grams of cream, 50 grams of wheat flour and 100 grams of honey, warmed while stirring for about 10 minutes. The flour amounts to about 5.6% of the weight of the cream, and even in this example, there is far more dairy than flour.

Even within the same recipe (ingredient proportions and method), the steps vary. In one method, the flour is first lightly toasted until pale golden and then mixed with the cream and honey, while in another, the cream is first brought gently to a simmer before the sweetener and flour are added. The former includes a step of toasting the flour, while the latter blends the flour into warmed dairy. Both involve heating, but they differ in whether the flour is toasted first or added afterward to warmed dairy.

After the sweetener is added, gentle heating and stirring continue, and it is served warm or slightly cooled. Its intended result is also different from that of sweets in which sugar is heated to a high temperature to make a candy that sets firm.

A form made by boiling down camel’s milk

A Kazakh regional dictionary published in 2005 records that in Turkmenistan and in Mangystau, Pavlodar and other parts of Kazakhstan, this name is used for camel’s milk boiled down and dried in ring shapes. Meanwhile, a meaning collected in Tyumen, Russia, refers to a food of milk cooked with flour and sugar. Foods called balkaimak range from soft milk sweets to dried ones. The cream-based preparation commonly seen today is one of those forms, and it differs from the dried food of the same name in how the ingredients are processed and in the state in which it is eaten.

Summer milk and a table for welcoming guests

Balkaimak is described as a food for welcoming guests, made with the cream gathered at summer pastures. In the season when milk is abundant, preparing a rich sweet combined with honey or sugar offers a kind of hospitality different from simply drinking milk. Even today, there is a custom of eating baursak and balkaimak together.

Its role at the table is not limited to being a separate dessert dish. The soft kind can be served with baursak at the tea table. On the other hand, the kind made from camel’s milk shaped into rings and dried becomes a food for storage. Although both share the practice of heating milk to make a sweet, they differ in the purpose for which they are made and in when they are eaten.

A Nauryz table set with dishes including dairy foods and baursak. Photo: Symbat Bolatova, 2023-03-22, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Reduced-size version from the source; no further processing.

Glossary