Ward El Sham

Ward el Sham is a very easy and tasty dessert from Syria. If you make your sugar syrup ahead you will have hardly any work to do what so ever with this one. This is a very popular Ramadan dessert. I love the taste of the fresh qashta with the sweet syrup and mixture of the crisp fillo.

20 sheets of fillo dough
1 (170 gram) can of qashta
2 cups butter, melted
ground pistachios for decoration
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon rose water
click here to make qastha at home
click here to make sugar syrup

1.Preheat oven to 350F. In 8inch x 8inch baking pan with a pastry brush brush butter all over the bottom on the pan. Carefully cut dough in half or to the sizes that would fit your pan. Keep the fillo covered with a damp towel at all times. As soon as you take one, cover then back.

2.Place 10 layers of fillo into the pan butter each layer after you layer it. In a small bowl add qashta, sugar and rose water, mix well. Carefully spoon the mixture on top of the fillo leveling it. Continue to add remaining 10 layers on top of mixture making sure to butter all sheets in between. You can choose to cut the pastry with a pastry cutter before you place it in the oven you want, I usually do not. Place pastry in oven to cook for 30 minutes or until it becomes golden.

3.Remove from heat and allow to cool for 30 minutes. Add sugar syrup all over the top of the pastry allowing to stand to absorb. Decorate with ground pistachios.

Yields: 9 servings