Sfouf

Sfouf (صفوف) is a Lebanese sweet baked in a large pan and cut into squares or diamonds. The best-known version is colored yellow with turmeric, but there are also deep brown versions made with grape or carob molasses. Not only the color but also the sweetener, the aroma and the use of dairy change. Because both are baked as a single sheet and cut into pieces, they suit family gatherings and teatime.

A Sweet for Fasting Periods, and Also One Made with Dairy

Not using eggs is different from not using any animal ingredients at all. Some yellow sfouf contain milk, powdered milk or a little butter. In Lebanon, versions made with oil and plant-based liquids are also chosen to suit Christian fasting periods. Even when some ingredients are swapped, the form of baking in a large pan and serving in pieces stays the same.

From the Family Plate to the Confectionery Shop

The cook Hadia Zebib recalls that as a child, when she gathered with her sisters and cousins at her grandmother’s house, cut sfouf was arranged on a special plate. According to a 2015 news report looking back on a Beirut neighborhood, in the 1990s the confectionery shop “Safsouf” was known for sfouf and nammoura. It is a sweet shared at home and, at the same time, one that can be bought at shops in town. However, these two records cannot establish when the sweet itself came into being.

The Yellow Is Not the Color of Egg Yolk

Yellow sfouf is characterized by the color and aroma of turmeric. Unlike cakes leavened by whipping eggs, recipes (ingredient proportions and methods) that contain no eggs and use baking powder are widely made. Wheat flour, semolina, sugar, oil and liquid are mixed, poured into a pan, scattered with pine nuts or almonds and baked. It is not necessarily a semolina-only sweet, and the proportion of semolina to flour varies.

The combination of flours also leads to differences in texture. Compared with a cake made only with fine, powdery wheat flour, one with added semolina retains a sense of the grains. On the other hand, adding semolina does not necessarily make it hard, and no single formula is the one standard throughout Lebanon. Hadia Zebib, a cook raised in Beirut, prefers sfouf that is not simply fluffy but slightly dense within its softness. Her published recipe combines fine semolina, or farina—wheat endosperm ground into granules—with regular wheat flour and bakes it as a single yellow cake.

One method is to coat the pan with tahini. The sesame paste adds flavor to the bottom and makes the baked sweet easier to remove. The pine nuts on top are not mere decoration either; they add a toasty note to each cut piece. Some grease the pan with butter, and some replace the nuts with sesame seeds, so there are household differences even within the same yellow cake.

Using Dibs Changes How the Sweetness Is Built

Sfouf bi dibs is made with a concentrated sweet syrup called dibs. Some dibs comes from grapes, and some is carob dibs made from the pods of the carob tree. The local term covers a wider range than the Japanese word for “molasses” (tōmitsu), which means only the by-product of producing sugar from sugarcane.

Using carob dibs turns the cake brown and gives it an aroma different from the turmeric of yellow sfouf. Recipes that add anise also bring a sweet, refreshing aroma. Rather than baking a yellow cake and then pouring brown syrup over it, the batter itself is sweetened with dibs. In the example of the cook Kamil Bouloot, wheat flour, carob dibs, oil and powdered milk are used, and the cake is served with ashta and fruit. This is one contemporary example that does not require semolina, and it shows that the name sfouf is used with some breadth.

A Name for Cutting, and How It Differs from Syrup-Soaked Sweets

The name sfouf is explained as related to the meaning “rows,” which also fits its appearance when it is neatly divided with parallel cuts. Letting it cool before cutting is not only to make the pieces look uniform but also to portion it without crumbling. Even though it uses ingredients similar to nammoura, which is soaked generously in syrup, sfouf is mainly enjoyed for its own sweetness and aroma. Whereas nammoura is moistened by the syrup it absorbs, sfouf keeps the clean bite of a cake that can be cut into pieces. The cook Amani Khazaal’s example also includes a finish of brushing a little cold syrup over it when it comes out of the oven. Unlike soaking the cake in syrup, this use adds a sheen to the surface.

Glossary