Kahi wa Gaimer — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

A beloved Iraqi breakfast of crispy, flaky layered pastry drenched in warm sugar syrup, served with a generous topping of thick buffalo clotted cream (gaimer).

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup melted ghee
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water for syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rose water
500g gaimer (clotted cream) or thick cream

Instructions

1 Make a soft dough from flour, salt, and warm water, knead for 10 minutes until smooth, divide into balls, and rest covered with oil for 30 minutes.
2 Stretch each dough ball paper-thin on an oiled surface, brush with melted ghee, fold into layers, and repeat stretching and folding to create many flaky layers.
3 Bake the layered pastry sheets in a buttered baking pan at 200C for 20 to 25 minutes until golden, crispy, and deeply flaky.
4 While hot, drizzle generously with warm sugar syrup made from sugar, water, lemon juice, and rose water, then top each portion with a thick spoonful of gaimer cream.

Did You Know?

Kahi wa Gaimer is the quintessential Iraqi Friday breakfast, and families line up at bakeries before dawn to get the freshest kahi, with the best gaimer coming from buffalo milk farms outside Baghdad.