Om Ali

Om Ali is a traditional and national Egyptian Dessert. It is basically a bread pudding in which Egyptian bread is soaked in milk with nuts and baked with clotted cream topping. Om Ali is sometimes also spelled as Um Ali or Umm Ali, all these are the same dessert. This is not an authentic recipe for Egyptian dessert that requires traditional Egyptian bread Rooa and Egyptian clotted cream. But I can promise this is the most delicious version of Om Ali. Like always, I tried to keep recipe simple with easy to find ingredients and best taste that is close to authentic flavors. What I love best about any bread puddings is it is integral in most cultures as the bread itself. In ancient times, when home bakers and chefs would dig innovative ways to use stale bread, bread pudding came into being as a poor man’s dessert. The English version of bread pudding has eggs while this Om Ali is lighter with no eggs and doesn’t set well. You can eat it with a spoon. The Indian bread pudding, Shahi Tukray is also inspired by Om Ali and was formed in the hands of Mughal chefs with local ingredients and spices like cardamom and saffron. Some cultures add caramel sauce, chocolate chip, and fruit to their bread puddings.

What does it mean?

Om Ali means the mother of Ali. The dish is named after the wife of a ruler from the Ayyubid dynasty in Egyp. She made this dish to celebrate her victory and distributed this dish throughout the country. The victory was a revenge story popular in Egypt but here’s we would just like to dwell in the sweetness of the dessert and forget about bitter parts of history.

Ingredients

This is a super simplified but delicious recipe of Om Al.i Om ali is made with rich creamy spiced milk and dry fruits. We need Milk: Full fat milk works best, but you can substitute little milk with evaporated or milk powder to make is rich and reduce cooking time. However, the butter in palmiers makes this pretty heavy so I recommend not to over-do fats. Sweetener: You can replace sugar with condensed milk if you caramel taste of condensed milk. You can reduce milk in the recipe too. Dry Fruit: Any dry fruits like nuts, dates, raisin that you like can fit in this recipe.

Variations

Om Ali is basically made with crushed puff pastry. Palmiers and croissants are also made with puff pastry so by using any of these you skip one step of baking puff pastry. Find the variation below.

With Puff Pastry: If you have puff pastry in hand, you can make Om Ali by baking puff pastry first. Cool and crush the puff pastry into bits. Puff pastry is not sweet as palmier so you need to add ¼ cup extra sugar in the milk. Follow the rest of the recipe as it is. With croissant: Similarly, you can use croissants in this recipe. Just break croissant and use it instead of palmiers. Add ¼ cup extra sugar in the milk.With palmier: Palmiers have a different name in different places like Lunette and bakar khani. As palmiers are crispy, they make the best choice for making Om Ali.

Tips

This is not the time to go skinny. Use full fat and rich creamy milk. Use good quality fresh palmiers that are made with real butter. Get full-fat whipping cream and finally garnish with premium quality fresh nuts and raisins. The recipe is simple and the taste is trapped in the ingredients.