A sweet treat at the end of your meal is timeless, especially when you consider how long people have been enjoying it. Dessert stretches as far back into the past as we’re able to look, and though many have died out, there are plenty who have soldiered on. Want to know which desserts you still enjoy today have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years? Here are 10.
Baklava
Dates Back To: Assyrian Empire
Baklava predates the countries of both Turkey and Greece, with the earliest known traces of Baklava back in 800 B.C., during the Assyrian Empire. Today, that honey-sweet phyllo treat has been modernized, but with some distinctions: You’ll find walnuts in the traditional Greek version, while Turkish baklava uses pistachios (prepare to be hypnotized by how it’s made here).
Recipe: Tara’s Multicultural Table
Cheesecake
Dates Back To: 800 B.C.
Cheesecake’s origins stretch all the way back to an island in the ancient Aegean Sea, between 800 and 700 B.C. The recipes we know today are probably a combination of Roman and Greek, after the Roman conquest of the Greeks in 146 B.C.
Recipe: Tasting History
Fruit Tarts
Dates Back To: Middle Ages
Sweet pastries were absolutely popping off in the Middle Ages, especially during the Renaissance. Well, really everything was popping off during the Renaissance, that’s sort of the whole point, but you get what I’m saying: Desserts were at an all-time high. Prior to this, a lot of pastries were savory, and Medieval open-faced, sweet pies were a true treat.
Recipe: DC Theater Arts
Kheer
Dates Back To: Ancient India
The classic Indian pudding made from milk, sugar, cardamom, and nuts is still widely loved today, and is a common treat in temples and during festivals. Kheer is thousands of years old; you can even find it referenced in “The Legend of the Chessboard,” an ancient Indian legend that inspired the classic wheat and chessboard problem in advanced mathematics.
Recipe: Masala and Chai
Bread Pudding
Dates Back To: Early 11th Century
Perhaps the oldest kitchen “hack” in the book is the idea of using stale bread to make something new. Early mentions of bread pudding go back to the 11th century, showing just how long people have been turning stale bread into a delicious dessert.
Recipe: Food.com
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Honey and Spice Cake
Dates Back To: Ancient Egypt
This is potentially the oldest dessert of the bunch, with references to honey and spice cakes alive and well in Homer’s “Odyssey”. Regional variations like yeast in Egypt and barley in Europe exist all across the world.
Recipe: How to Cook That
Halva
Dates Back To: Early 13th Century
The nutty, toasty, fudge-like Middle Eastern treat has disputed origins; most Middle Eastern cultures lay claim to it, with popular theories suggesting it came from Arabia or Persia. What everybody does agree on, though, is that we love it.
Recipe: Food and Dessert Ideas
Donuts
Dates Back To: Ancient Greece and Rome
Fried dough has been around as long as things have been fried, and sweet fried dough is also thousands of years old. But the guy with the hole that we know and love? That’s an American invention, my friends, made popular in the late 1800s in Manhattan. Oh, and they were known as oily cakes. “Donut” is a great rebrand.
Recipe: How to Cook That
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Sesame Candy
Dates Back To: Mesopotamia
Where wasn’t sesame candy developed? You can see roots in the history of Greece, Rome, China, and so many other places. There was almost nowhere you couldn’t find sesame candy back then. Today, we mostly see those suckers the gas station.
Recipe: Brass Lamp
Pecan Pie
Dates Back To: 18th Century
We have Native American tribes to thank for pecan pie, the only distinctly American dessert on this list. Pecans had a lot of uses for these tribes beyond just a delicious dessert: They used them for medicine pouches and wampum belts, too.
Recipe: Back to Basics
