Shubbak el-Habayek | Iraqi Sweet Bread

Shubbak el-Habayek is an Iraqi sweet bread. The name, translated, means The Lover's Window!

 This is a fragrant bread, with orange blossom water, rose water, cardamom, and mahleb.

Sfoof - Lebanese Turmeric Buns

These Sfoofs are lovely yeasted buns colored with turmeric and flavored with anise seeds, mahleb, and orange blossom water, and then studded with pistachios. 

These Sfoofs are fragrant and sweet, but not overly so. When they were baking, our house was filled with an amazing aroma from the anise seeds, mahleb (also spelled mahlab), and orange blossom water in the dough.

Ka'kat - Middle Eastern Snack Bread

These tiny little Ka'kat rolls are a Middle Eastern street food and are flavored with mahleb, the ground kernels of black cherries.

When I pulled these out of the oven after a long day of baking, I could not stop myself from buttering and eating these. The aroma from the mahleb kept calling me back to the cooling rack "just to make sure" these turned out.