Bint al-Sahn

Bint al-Sahn is a Yemeni bread-based sweet. Many thin sheets of dough are stacked and baked, and honey is poured over it while it is still warm.

When the thin layers, fragrant with fat, are pulled apart by hand, the honey soaks in between the sheets of dough.

Rolling Out and Stacking Each Sheet

Flour, eggs, water, yeast, ghee and other ingredients are kneaded, divided and left to rest. Once the dough is easy to stretch, each piece is spread out until it is as thin as paper and laid in a round pan, with melted ghee brushed on each layer. The top is brushed with egg yolk and sprinkled with nigella seeds or sesame seeds, then baked.

Resting makes the dough easier to stretch thin, and the fat brushed between the sheets helps keep the layers separate. When honey is poured over it straight from the oven, the toasty layers and the sweet honey can be enjoyed together. In English it is also called “honey cake,” but its texture is closer to a bread made of thin stacked layers than to a whisked sponge.

This sweet of thin sheets rolled out and stacked one by one also appears at celebratory meals and when welcoming guests. An article reporting on Yemeni food culture describes both the custom of serving it partway through lunch and people who eat it as a sweet dish after the meal. Both when the freshly baked, honey-topped sweet is eaten and at which stage of the meal it is served vary from household to household.

The Highland Method and Names

A folk-culture publication documenting the food culture of the Yemeni highlands describes an example in which white wheat flour is mixed with a little whole wheat flour and kneaded with eggs, milk, yeast and other ingredients. The dough is divided into small pieces, stretched thin by hand and brushed with ghee, and about 15 to 20 sheets are stacked on a metal plate. In this method, the stack is left to rise, and once it has browned, honey is poured over it and it is served.

In the highlands, there are cases where a version made without eggs and milk in the dough is distinguished by the name “sabaya.” Some regions also use sabaya as another name for Bint al-Sahn. The proportions of flour, eggs and milk differ from place to place and from maker to maker.

Glossary