Bulgarian desserts are among the most popular in all of Europe.
Slavic people are really picky when it comes to their food, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that some of them are great at making delicious pastry dishes.
If you’d like to get more information about the most amazing Bulgarian dishes, be sure to check out this article about Bulgarian food.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the list of sweets Bulgarian cuisine has to offer.
Table of Contents
Most Popular Bulgarian Desserts
Most of the popular Bulgarian dishes on this list are easy to prepare. If you are not planning on visiting Bulgaria, you may want to try and prepare them yourself.
If cooking is not your thing, well it doesn’t matter, you can still enjoy this article.
1. Tikvenik
Probably the most popular Bulgarian dessert is called Tikvenik (from tikva which means pumpkin) [1].
This pastry is made from dough that is filled with grated pumpkin (peeled and with no seeds), walnuts, cinnamon and sugar. This delicious Bulgarian dish is most commonly served during the Christmas Eve dinner.
Tikvenik (after baking) is usually covered with powdered sugar. If you ever decide to visit Bulgaria, make sure you try this traditional pumpkin-filled dessert.
2. Kurabiiki
These amazing sweet cookies are considered one of the best desserts in Bulgaria. The recipe for these cookies includes ingredients such as honey, egg yolk, butter, powdered sugar and flour.
In some cases vanilla extract is added.
These cookies are sweet, delicious and don’t require a significant time investment (they can be made in less than an hour). If your travels lead you to Bulgaria, make sure you try these amazing cookies.
3. Torta Garash or Cake Garash
This famous Bulgarian chocolate dessert is usually served during special occasions (like birthdays, celebrations). The batter for this chocolate cake is made of walnuts, eggs and powdered sugar.
The layers of this cake are filled with sweet cream and chocolate. After baking, the cake is covered with chocolate icing.
Ingredients for this recipe are easy to find, but unfortunately, preparing this dish does take up quite a bit of time.
4. Kozunak
Kozunak is a type of sweet bread made with raisins and often served during Christmas, Easter and other special occasions and celebrations.
Walnuts (or almonds) are occasionally used when making this bread. In some recipes instead of raisins, dried fruit is added to the mix.
If you ever end up celebrating Christmas or Easter with someone from Eastern Europe, you will probably see this bread at the dinner table.
5. Banitsa
This is among the best traditional Bulgarian dishes. This pastry is made with eggs, yogurt and brined cheese (also known as pickled cheese).
In certain parts of Bulgaria, small coins or lucky charms are put into the dough. The Bulgarian tradition goes that whoever finds the coin (or the lucky charm) will have a great year [2].
Although this particular recipe is not considered as a dessert, the versions of it made with milk or pumpkin-filling are (I’ve mentioned tikvenica).
6. Marudnik
Marudink is a type of Bulgarian pancakes, often served in restaurants. Ingredients are flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, salt, water and oil.
Marudnik is quite easy to make and does not require a lot of time. It’s usually served with jam and is covered with powdered sugar.
7. Kazanlak Donuts
The name of dessert comes from the small Bulgarian city of Kazanlak. The dough for this dessert is made of eggs, milk, flour, yeast, yogurt and sugar.
The dough is then fried in hot oil and covered with sugar. In some recipes the Kazanlak Donuts are filled with jam and/or honey.
8. Maslenki Cookies
These Bulgarian jam-filled sweet cookies are most commonly served as a dessert during Christmas Eve.
The traditional Bulgarian recipe includes lard, but nowadays maslenki are more commonly made with butter. After this dessert is baked, some cooks like to cover them with honey.
9. Medenki
Medenki are popular Bulgarian cookies made with honey and cinnamon (among other ingredients, but these are the ones that add most to the flavor).
After they are baked, the medenki are often covered with chocolate (dark or white) and sugar.
If you ever find yourself in Bulgaria during Christmas time, you will most likely get to try this amazing dessert (you may even want to go there just to try this amazing cookie).
10. Oshav
Oshav belongs in a group of dishes most commonly served during Christmas. It’s prepared by cooking dried fruit in water.
Cinnamon or some sort of sweet jam is often added to the mix (in order to enhance the flavor).
11. Kifla
Kifla (or kifli for plural) is a crescent roll (looks a little bit like a croissant) baked with a filling of jam, marmalade or sweet cream.
Kifli are soft, tasty and will simply melt in your mouth. They are an amazing example of great Bulgarian food, and are a great dish to end this article on.
The Bottom Line
We’ve talked about some of the most amazing Bulgarian recipes, their ingredients and much more.
I hope this article has given you enough information about the most enjoyable Bulgarian dishes.
If you are interested in learning more about Slavic food, be sure to check out this article about the best Serbian food.
If that is not enough, you may also want to check out this article about Czech cuisine and this one about the most popular Croatian dishes.
References
- https://www.carolinescooking.com/tikvenik-bulgarian-pumpkin-strudel/
- https://medium.com/@mistoyanova/new-years-bulgarian-banitsa-with-fortunes-f14d72bd75da
