Kolompeh

Kolompeh (کلمپه) is a sweet from Kerman in southeastern Iran. It is made by wrapping a date filling in wheat-flour dough and baking it. It is best known as a disc with a pattern pressed into its surface by a mold. When it is cut, a brown filling shows between layers of pale crust. The fruit is not placed on the outside as decoration. Instead, the dates are pitted, kneaded into a paste and wrapped at the center. The sweetness and stickiness of the dates are eaten together with the baked dough around them.

From a Home Sweet to a Souvenir

Kolompeh is described as a sweet that women in Kerman have baked at home with local dates and fats. The Encyclopaedia Iranica, a reference work that covers Iranian food culture, records one form that is usually made for Nowruz. In this form, mashed and pan-fried dates are combined with chopped walnuts, cinnamon and cloves, rolled into small balls, wrapped in a thin leavened dough and baked. This does not mean that every stamped disc-shaped product made today contains cloves or uses leavened dough. A home sweet once made to serve guests at New Year also became a Kerman souvenir that workshops sell in various shapes and packaging.

Among the sweets of the same region, Qottab has a fried crust coated in powdered sugar, and some komaj is made with malt. Kolompeh is eaten as a combination of the patterned baked crust and the date filling. The record of the form made at home for Nowruz does not show when today’s stamped products first appeared or who invented them.

Turning Dates into a Filling

In one method, the dates for the filling are combined with spices such as cardamom, and walnuts are added. Some versions use cinnamon, so the combination of aromas is not fixed. Even dried dates differ in firmness depending on the variety and their condition. The firm flesh is not wrapped in large pieces. The dates are pitted, peeled if necessary and mashed into a cohesive filling. In the recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) given by a shop in Kerman, the dates are warmed with a small amount of fat to soften them before the walnuts and spices are mixed in.

In this way, dates serve both as a sweetener and as the ingredient that forms the filling itself. Kolompeh is not simply a sweet in which sugar has been replaced with fruit flesh. Its distinctive feature is a dense filling that contains the fiber of the fruit, wrapped in a crust that contains fat. Some methods add no sugar to the dough and rely mainly on the sweetness of the dates, but it cannot be said that “all kolompeh is sugar-free.” Other types based mainly on walnuts and sugar, as well as modern products that include chocolate, are also made.

Wrapping the Filling and Stamping a Pattern

The dough is made with wheat flour and fat, and some versions add egg yolk, yogurt, rose water or saffron. Depending on the proportions, the dough can be pale or slightly yellow. Yazd’s qottab is dusted with powdered sugar, but kolompeh shows the baked crust itself and the pattern from the press mold on its surface.

In one shaping method, the dough is cut into rounds, filling is placed in the center, a second round of dough is laid on top, and the edges are sealed. A pattern is then applied with a dedicated mold or stamp. The filling spreads between the two layers of crust, and the mold’s pattern is pressed into the surface after the edges have been sealed. Besides wooden and metal molds, other tools are sometimes used at home to make the pattern. Products other than stamped discs, such as small bite-sized pieces and finger shapes, are also made.

The way it is baked also affects the texture. During baking, the baker checks the color of the crust and how dry the whole piece, including the filling, has become. In a home method introduced by a shop in Kerman, the pastries are finished when they are lightly colored, and care is taken not to dry them out too much. If the thickness of the dough or the amount of filling changes, the baking time also changes.

Kolompeh with a radiating pattern on its surface and a twisted edge. The crust, which keeps the pattern from the mold, becomes the finished appearance of the baked sweet. Photo: MRG90 / CC BY-SA 3.0, original image.

Glossary