Ashta, our Lebanese cream is the foundation for all pastries; yet it does not contain cream.
Sure, there was a time when ashta was pure cream. Nowadays, it is made with milk (frequently powdered milk in Lebanon), fresh American-style toast and flavorings!
The result: a clotted cream that tastes fresh and light, without any cream
Such is the genius of Lebanese pastry chefs.
You can make it with powdered milk, milk (whole or lowfat), half-and-half, or a combo of milk and whipping cream (which is usually my choice).
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups of milk (I prefer to use half-and-half) (1/2 milk and half whipping cream)
- 3 pieces of American-style white bread (like Wonder bread)
- 1 Tablespoon of cornstarch (15 g.)
- 1 teaspoon of orange blossom water, 1 teaspoon of rose water
- 1 Tablespoon of sugar (optional: if you are serving the dessert with a syrup, don’t add sugar to ashta)
METHOD:
- Remove the crust from the bread and cut the bread in dice. Place the bread in a saucepan with the milk.
(at this point, you can let the bread soak in the milk all day in the fridge or a few hours)
- Dissolve the cornstarch in 1/4 cup of water.
- Heat the milk and bread stirring from time to time, add the sugar (if using) and when the mixture starts steaming, add the cornstarch mixture. Stir continuously for two minutes, until the mixture thickens; add the rose and orange blossom water and remove from the heat.
- Let it cool and store in the fridge a few hours before using to let it thicken completely. The “cream” (ashta) will keep a few days.
NOTE: All Lebanese creams and puddings are thickened with cornstarch (or wheat starch); sometimes, you will find that the cornstarch was not sufficient and the cream or pudding is not getting thick; it is OK to add more cornstarch, starting with one tablespoon, diluted in a bit of liquid to get it thicker, and it should then thicken within one minute.
93 Comments
@Sylvia: the bread bits will melt but it will give texture to the cream; I agree with you a little fat is always better; my choice is 1 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of whipping cream.
I remember the first time I had ashta-I wondered about it! I had no idea what was in it. It’s gorgeous and unusual!
je ne savais pas qu’on mettait du pain de mie dedans, c’est vrai que ça doit donner une texture plus ferme!! merci Joumana et bonne journée! bises! kouky
Joumana, this looks so good. I have never made Ashta before but always love to eat it
I am definitely going to make this. It looks sooooooooo Good!
How interesting…if this can be made with milk powder, then I’m sure I could make this with powdered soymilk!
that is an extremely interesting “cream”. Thanks for the informative post now I know how it is made. It has been quite a while since I last had some, now maybe I will have to make it myself.
This is so intriguing, light and simple to make.
Mimi
Je n’aurais jamais cru que c’était si simple de faire l’Ashta! Est-ce que ça ira avec du pain blanc libanais?
Viviane: il faut utiliser du pain de mie; c’est la mie tendre qui donne la texture souhaitée de crème épaisse.
une belle découverte pour moi que je note!! merci
Amazing!! But I’m pretty sure they sell no rose or orange blossom water here
Yeah, it’s good, very useful, thanks
I am so intrigued by this delicious sounding dish, I cannot wait to try it. I have never heard of adding bread to cream like this, and of course your photos just make it all the more tempting.
Hello Joumana,
I was wondering what made you modify your earlier ashta recipe? This new recipe has more bread and cornstarch — is that because you now use skim milk instead of half-and-half?
http://www.tasteofbeirut.com/2009/06/clotted-cream-homemade/
Hi Elizabeth: I simply tried it again and it did not set enough so I added more cornstarch to be sure it got thick enough. I still use half-and-half though, it just tastes better.
i personnally find you dont need to go through all that. just bring milk to a ‘just-boil’ and add some lemon, or any other acid, vinegar for ex, i prefer lemon (just less than half a lemon would do for 1 L of milk). then the milk will start to curd, so you have to stir a bit to curd it up to the fullest. remember the higher the milk temperature, the less acid you will need. and the less the temperature, the more acid. you can use any type of fresh milk, pasturized or not. then you just have to strain the curd with a cloth for about 30min depending on the texture you want it to have.
then you have your ashta! (or ricotta, or paneer, a lot of cultures used this kind of curding) yummy and perfet. you can use it for salty of sugary treat. it is at this point that you can blend in any flavor (rose, orange blossom…)
no need for corn starch, or industrial white bread with all the ikky stuff in it! you say cream is what is heavy on the stomach, i say chemicals and starches is what upsets ur body!
try it and you’ll never go back! promise.
@Sola: Thanks for you valuable input! I have tried this technique once but thought that it required a lot more milk than I wanted to use and the other technique is easier for smaller quantities.
do u mean two cups of powder milk or dissolved milk?and can we use the fresh milk?
@Farah: I mean two cups of dissolved milk; yes, fresh milk is fine.
hi i will try ur recipe and see how it goes,im lebanese and have a few ways off making it but want something to put on fruit cocktails thats not to heavy.
Hi, to use corn flour instead of bread, how many cups should i add??! Thank you!!
@Rosie: Honestly I have never made it with cornflour.
Hi Joumana,
Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I am trying to make a common lebanese desert that is called ashta with honey. They usually seve it with slices of a banana and a little ground pistachios on top. I wanted to know if you know how to make it.
@Amany: Amany it is just ashta with honey and slices of bananas; there are two ways to make ashta; the long way is by boiling the milk very slowly until it forms a crust on top (the ashta) that you remove and put aside; the other way, is this recipe; then you simply serve it with honey on the side.
Hi Joumana,
Thanks for the clarification. However, I believe that the desert also has semolina in it. How would I incorporate that to the ashta bil asal recipe?
Hi Joumana,
Thanks for the clarification. To my understanding the ashta bil assal recipe has semolina in it. I would like to know how to incorporate the semolina into the recipe. Using your recipe, how much semolina could I add to maintain a good texture.
@Amany: I think you may be referring to what we call here “layalee lubnan” which is a dessert made with milk and semolina or cornstarch; I have a recipe on the blog for that, made with cornstarch and I am making another one this week with semolina. If you can wait a few days, I will post it this weekend.
http://www.tasteofbeirut.com/2009/09/milk-pudding-layalee-lubnan/
Today at our one local Lebanese restaurant we had a dessert they called ashta. It was a cream filled puffpasty which looked like spanakopita. It was delicious. Do you have a specific recipe for that. Would love to try them at home. Next time we are going to try Kenafi.
@Margaret: I have posted several with ashta, the one you are referring too might be what is called here sha3ebeyate, which is made with phyllo; the custard inside is made with milk and semolina; and it is doused in an orange blossom syrup after baking; it is served in triangles; is that the one you are referring to? (there are many others which use phyllo and ashta, one is shaped like a finger and deep-fried and is called znood al-sit).
hey thanks for the recipe and everything! i tried it using powdered milk + whipping cream but it didnt work
it remained liquidy and tastes like ” mehlabiyye ” :/ can u help me please ? what did i do wrong ?
hi thanks alot for the recipe and everything
i tried it using powdered milk + whipping cream but it didnt work as expected it remained liquidy :/ can u help please ? what did i do wrong ?
@Anthony: How much powdered milk did you use? Also if you see that it stays liquidy, start adding more cornstarch; dilute one tablespoon in a little water or milk and start adding it while stirring; add the cornstarch while the mixture is steaming. IN about one minute it should thicken; if it doesnt, add more cornstarch until it does. Good luck.
@Anthony: two things are important: start adding cornstarch when you see it stays liquidy; add the cornstarch when the mixture is still steaming. dilute the cornstarch in tap water first otherwise it will clump. Add one tablespoon then add more if it still does not thicken. Also with this recipe, the mixture will thicken as it cools and even more when you leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours or longer. another way is instead of adding cornstarch you can mix it with some ricotta cheese, starting with 1/2 cup and increasing to one cup. This is going to work.
@Anthony: two things are important: start adding cornstarch when you see it stays liquidy; add the cornstarch when the mixture is still steaming. dilute the cornstarch in tap water first otherwise it will clump. Add one tablespoon then add more if it still does not thicken. Also with this recipe, the mixture will thicken as it cools and even more when you leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours or longer. another way is instead of adding cornstarch you can mix it with some ricotta cheese, starting with 1/2 cup and increasing to one cup. If you are still having problems, let me know.
Hi Joumana,
I followed the instructions that you had provided above and thought that everything had worked out well, the mixture thickened up nicely when I added the corn starch mixed in the water.
I put the now thickened mixture into the fridge to cool down and thicken properly, as you had instructed. However when I took the mixture out a couple of hours later, it had congealed into a solid mass. I’m thinking that I may have added too much corn starch but not completely sure as I followed the 3 tablespoons mixed in a 1/4 cup of water, as you had recommended.
For the milk, I used 1 cup of full-fat milk and 1 cup of whipping cream. Any thoughts on what could have gone wrong and how I could fix this?
Thank you,
Zohair
@Zohair: There was too much cornstarch; here is what i’d do to fix this: I would put the cream back in a saucepan on very gentle heat and add more milk or water, 1/2 cup. If you feel like the consistency is right, it is loosening up, great, if not add one or two more tablespoons. then transfer it to the bowl and let it cool. Let me know if you can if that takes care of it. So sorry about this misshap. I read an earlier recipe I posted a couple of years prior and had used only 1 piece of toast; I am going to re-test it this week. Will mail you the result.
Hi Joumana,
Thanks for getting back to me. Unfortunately I no longer have that batch, I didn’t know what to do with it so I decided that it would be best to start from scratch.
Next time round I’ll use 2 tablespoons of corn starch as opposed to the 3, better for it to be more liquid and I can thicken it up rather than the other way round.
I’m thinking about going in with 2 pieces of toast instead of 3 but I’ll hold off until you re-test your old recipe.
Also you don’t need to apologize, this was my first time using corn starch so I was expecting something or the other to go wrong.
Thank you,
Zohair
@Zohair: so glad to hear you are not mad! I test every single recipe I post (except for one, the Abbas cookies, I just posted the recipe from Chef Ramzi, and it was a bad one). sometimes, though, mistakes slip up. I am testing it today, so I will send you an e-mail tonight or tomorrow; I also found an older recipe in my archives (on the blog) tested a year earlier in which I used less toast and less starch!
Hi Joumana – thank you for a wonderful and easy recipe for ashta. I’m wondering if you’ve tried making Ashta the old fashioned way. I remember that raw milk would be boiled, then lemon juice is added to make it clot, then the rose water/orange blossom water is added and then the clotted milk is scooped from the top. Is this what you know about it? I wonder if I’m mixed up between the Arisheh and Ashta recipe… nevertheless this is such a feast!!
@Mama’s Lebanese kitchen: I am in the process of investigating all of this; everybody I have talked to here makes ashta like this (with the breadcrumbs) or buys it from al-rasheedi or entabli or pastry shops like hallab. I will let you know.
Hi, it’s me again. First of all, my most sincere apologies. I realize now where I had messed up with my attempt at ashta. I had completely misread your recipe the first time round and added way too much corn starch (3 tablespoons instead of the 1 you had recommended). I’m going to give this recipe a shot again because nobody else seems to have the same problem as me.
I also found the older recipe that you had mentioned (http://www.tasteofbeirut.com/2009/06/clotted-cream-homemade/) so I have another method to try if I can’t get this to work.
Thank you so much for being willing to help out a novice ashta maker. I will let you know how this batch turns out complete with pictures (if it’s a success).
@Zohair: Great! I have such a busy week but as soon as possible I will try it myself as well, since it is going to be included in the cookbook I need to make 100% sure it works. By the way, you can always go the easy route, and just use ricotta cheese flavored with mazaher. I saw a recipe here in the back of a can of sweetened condensed milk for ashta in which you add water and a lot of cornstarch, so that is another option too; the breadcrumbs give it that clotted texture. I also would like to include a link to a recipe for atayef bel-ashta posted by a Syrian/French blogger who makes her ashta with whipping cream, milk, semolina and mascarpone or ricotta; it sounds and looks delicious; her blog is in French though so I could translate it (or google!)http://parisalep.com/2013/02/14/atayef-assafiri-mini-crepes-orientales/
Hi Joumana – I tried making the REAL ashta last night after getting an older recipe from mom and found it to be real simple. The texture as well as the flavor was almost identical to what I remember real ashta to be from the Hallab in Tripoli. What I did was basically gently bringing half/half to a boil, then adding a bit of rose water/orange blossom water and immediately squirt a bit of lemon juice in it.. the lemon makes the milk clot almost instantly so I used a spatula with holes to collect the clotted milk and place it in a separate strainer.. the whole thing took less than 15 minutes.. i let it cool then placed in fridge and bam.. I also tried a variation of your recipe and liked it too.
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