Turkish Tulumba

Popular throughout the Mediterranean, tulumba is a fried dough pastry that is sweetened with syrup, and sometimes topped with crushed nuts. Learn how to make delicious Turkish Tulumba at home!

If you’ve never had the good fortune of trying Tulumba, this simple fried dessert is perfect as an afternoon treat, or as a lighter dessert following dinner. When I visited Istanbul, I made sure to visit a tulumba street vendor each day I was there! 

If you’re having trouble imagining it, you can think of tulumba as a Mediterranean churro (although it has origins in the Middle East).

this recipe

What is Tulumba

Tulumba is a popular Turkish dessert made from fried dough (it’s actually very similar to the dough used for choux pastry), soaked in a sweet syrup. The dish is often eaten as a dessert or a sweet snack. You can think of it as a Mediterranean churro. This Turkish delicacy is popular throughout the Mediterranean region, especially in Greece (where it is often mis-credited to have originated).

Origins

In Europe, tulumba is undeniably a Turkish dessert with its roots going back to the Ottoman Empire. However, the origins of this tulumba recipe possibly go back to the Middle East, in the form of balah el sham. Where exactly in the Middle East balah el sham originates from is a bit more of a precarious question as the recipe is made in several regions under several different names, with some of those names being derived from the European tulumba or turumba (from the Italian, tromba).

For the syrup

• Granulated white sugar
• Water
• Lemon juice, freshly squeezed

For frying

• Vegetable oil (canola or sunflower oil works fine too)

How to make Tulumba

Making tulumba from scratch has a few steps involved (mostly because you need to make the dough, and syrup separately), but it thankfully isn’t very difficult and doesn’t take too long to do. If you’ve made any sort of choux pastry in the past, much of the process will feel familiar to you. 

Preparing the syrup

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small pot. Once the mixture is boiling, add the lemon juice and allow it to continue boiling for another five or six minutes. Remove the syrup from the heat, allow it to cool to room temperature, and then set aside in the refrigerator. 

Prepare the tulumba dough

This is the part of making tulumba that is very similar to working with choux pastry. It’s essentially the same process with the option to add semolina before we move on to the next step, shaping and frying the tulumba.

In a shallow nonstick pot, add water and melt the butter over a medium heat. Next, add the lemon juice, sugar, and salt to the pot and mix until combined. Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, add the flour and stir continuously using a wooden spatula until the dough is smooth and free of lumps, about four to five minutes. Set it aside to cool. 

Once the dough has cooled, add the first egg and stir until it’s completely incorporated. Repeat the process with the remaining two eggs, making sure to add them one at at a time and mixing completely before adding the next one. If you’re using semolina, add it now and mix until completely combined. The final dough should be shiny and slightly sticky/tacky to the touch.

Shape and fry the tulumba

Transfer the dough to a pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Add the vegetable oil into a wide pot (it doesn’t need to be very deep), but do not put it over heat just yet. Squeeze out approximately two inches of the dough into the cold oil, using a pair of kitchen scissors to snip it free of the pastry bag.

Fry the dough over medium heat until they become golden brown and crispy, about 20 minutes. Transfer the fried dough using a slotted spoon directly into the cold sugar syrup that you prepared and refrigerated earlier. Stir the tulumba pieces in the syrup for a minute to ensure that they’re well-soaked before removing and repeating the process with the rest of the dough.

Serve tulumba warm, or at room temperature. Feel free to garnish them (I’ve used chopped pistachios, which is a fairly classic option), enjoy!

Tips

Cold oil is crucial

Adding the tulumba dough to cold oil to begin frying is important to getting the right texture. While it sounds like you may save a little time by heating the oil first, adding the tulumba dough to hot oil results in the outer parts of the dough browning too quickly, while not giving the inside of the dough opportunity to cook through properly.

If you need to fry your tulumba in multiple batches, make sure to do so starting with cold oil each time.

This is Piping 101, but in case you’ve not had a chance to go to pastry school, filling your piping bag completely makes it harder to squeeze. Leave a little air in it, and squeezing out the dough will feel much easier.

Variations

Spice up your syrup

My favorite way to play with the flavors of this tulumba dessert is to add spices to the sugar syrup as it’s boiling – a cinnamon stick or a few cloves infuses a wonderful flavor to syrup.

Semolina-free

If you don’t have any handy, or you’re simply not a fan, you can omit the semolina in this recipe. Do keep in mind though that it’s a part of what gives tulumba its own unique texture and taste.

Your syrup, your rules.

There’s a lot of room for having fun with tulumba. You can swap the sugar syrup for something (like melted chocolate), or keep the syrup, and add something over it (like melted chocolate).

(Apparently, I really want some chocolate today.)

Nuts or not?

While I presented this recipe with crushed pistachios, it’s totally fine to swap them out for different nuts. And if you don’t want to add nuts, let your creativity go nuts. Try some shredded coconut, or birthday cake sprinkles instead.

Serving suggestions

As tulumba is a dessert, there really isn’t any set pairing for it. However, since you’re interested in this sweet Turkish recipe, why not make a day of it. Have some Turkish eggs in yogurt for breakfast, followed by Turkish pizza for dinner.