Halawet el Jibn

Halawet el Jibn (حلاوة الجبن) is a sweet in which a soft dough made from cheese and semolina is wrapped around a milk cream called ashta. The short white rolls are scattered with pistachios and drizzled with a syrup scented with flowers. The cheese is not in the filling at the center but in the wrapper around it. Its construction, inside and out, differs both from a baked, set cheesecake and from kunafa, in which fine strands of dough cover cheese.

Hama and Homs: A Sweet Rooted in Each

Hama and Homs in central Syria are both known for this sweet, and accounts of its origin compete with each other. The Salloura family hands down a story that Asaad Salloura’s great-grandfather made a sweet cheese dough in 1870s Hama and sold it as he went around. In that account, it was at first served as cut pieces of dough with syrup, and later changed to the form wrapped around cream. It is also made as a specialty in Tripoli in northern Lebanon and has been passed down in both homes and confectionery shops.

The Comparative Encyclopedia of Aleppo by Khayr al-Din al-Asadi, who collected the language and life of Aleppo in the 20th century, records that it was made in early spring, the season when cheese was plentiful. Not only the current rolled form but also a way of life that uses seasonal dairy products for sweets is preserved in the records of this sweet.

The names of the cities Hama, Homs and Tripoli alone cannot explain the differences in the sweet. The appearance of a single plate changes depending on the cheese available, the effort spent removing salt, how the ashta is made and whether it is wrapped or served separately. In Lebanese confectionery shops, it can also be seen cut into bite-sized rolls with the syrup served on the side.

Turning Melting Cheese into a Dough That Can Be Rolled

The name means “sweetness of cheese” in Arabic. The dough uses white cheeses such as akkawi, and mozzarella is also used at home. However, not every cheese gives the same result. Varieties that melt smoothly and can be stretched when heated are chosen. Salted akkawi is first soaked in water to remove the salt. This step adjusts the saltiness at the wrapper stage rather than hiding it under a lot of sweet syrup.

Semolina is wheat ground into granules. One method is to add water and sugar, heat it into a paste firmer than porridge, and then knead in the cheese. The cheese, which melts and stretches, is combined with the heated semolina paste and worked until it comes together smoothly. In another recipe, the mozzarella is first melted in sugar water, and the semolina is added once it begins to boil. The order of mixing varies by maker. What matters here is not baking in an oven but bringing the dough together into one mass in the pot. If strands of cheese remain, a thin, even wrapper cannot be made.

While it is still warm enough to handle, the dough is spread into a rectangle, and the cooled ashta is laid in a long strip along one edge. The dough is rolled over once from that edge to enclose the cream and is cut with the seam side down. Because wrapping a hot filling makes the shape harder to form, the wrapper and filling are prepared separately. The thickness of the dough and the length of each piece vary by shop and by recipe (ingredient proportions and method), and extreme thinness is not the only virtue. Versions that leave the wrapper thicker bring the cheese’s springiness to the fore, while spreading it thin changes its proportion to the cream.

Milk filling being placed on cheese dough and rolled up in Hama, Syria. Photo: Dosseman, 2009-04-06, Hama, Syria. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the distributing source; no additional processing.

Two Different Textures from the Same Milk

Ashta refers to a rich milk cream, but some current home recipes make it by cooking milk, cream and cornstarch until it sets. Cream gathered from the surface of milk and a substitute filling thickened with starch are not the same, down to how they are made. The latter tends to hold its shape once cooled, which makes it easy to use in rolled sweets.

Orange blossom water or rose water is added to the sugar syrup called atter. Because the cheese dough itself also contains sugar, the finishing syrup does more than add sweetness: it contributes a floral fragrance and moisture to the surface. The fine bits of pistachio add a toasty note to the soft dairy layers. There is also a form in which the sweet cheese dough is cut and served without wrapping any cream, so “being rolled” does not define the full scope of the name.

Atter being poured over a sweet made with white cheese dough. Photo: 白と赤茶, 2025-04-08, location unknown. CC BY-SA 4.0, Original image. No processing.

This sweet is also lined up in the showcases of Syrian confectionery shops in Istanbul. In an account of a 2025 visit, long, thin rolls were kept refrigerated and served with rose-scented syrup to taste. A dairy sweet beloved in Syria is also eaten at shops run by people who have relocated.

There are also combinations that make it a cold dairy sweet. A dessert at a restaurant in Dubai is a plate of ashta ice cream rolled in cheese dough and served with pistachios. This is that restaurant’s own version, replacing the smooth milk filling with cold ice cream.

Halawet el jibn served in Jerusalem. Milk filling is rolled in white cheese dough and scattered with nuts. Photo: Tom Bahar, date unknown, Jerusalem. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the distributing source; no additional processing.

Glossary