When Amasya's sweet table comes up, syrupy pastries are usually the first thing that comes to mind, yet the city's dessert tradition also has a separate branch in which bread, milk and fruit take the leading role. The two best-known members of this branch are vişneli ekmek (sour cherry bread) and fırın sütlaç (baked rice pudding). Both appear side by side in the lists of the region's desserts, but their origins, their preparation and their place at the table differ. Vişneli ekmek is an example of turning the plainest ingredients into a treat worth serving. Fırın sütlaç is Amasya's version of a dessert known almost everywhere in Anatolia, with roots going back centuries, made by cooking milk, rice and sugar patiently and then browning the surface in the oven. Beside vişneli ekmek stands a sister dessert that can hardly be considered apart from it: unutma beni ("forget me not"), also made from stale bread and now registered under the name of Amasya.

Amasya's cuisine is broad, as one would expect from the city's history. The settlement dates back more than seven and a half thousand years, it has been home to many civilizations, and this variety has left its mark on the kitchen. Its role in the Ottoman period as a centre to which princes were sent to govern is an explanation that writers on the local cuisine reach for again and again; it is in this context that the dishes are said to have attained a flavour and presentation "worthy of sultans". The region's ecology has shaped the kitchen as well. Preparation for winter dishes begins in summer, and foods dried in summer are carried to the table in winter. Sugar beet, poppy and sunflower are commonly used products, and the Misket apple, the first thing most people think of when they hear the name Amasya, also appears in desserts. For people living in a valley famous for its orchards, it is only natural that apple, quince, sour cherry and apricot take a prominent place in the sweet kitchen.

Desserts in Amasya Cuisine

Sources that compile the local cuisine list Amasya's desserts as follows: dene hasudası, kuymak, yuka tatlısı, ayva gaylesi, elma tatlısı, fırın sütlaç, gelin parmağı, gömlek kadayıfı, kalbur tatlısı, höşmerim, peluza (hasuda), şeker böreği, unutma beni, vişneli ekmek and zerdali gaylesi. What stands out in this list is that, alongside syrupy and dough-based sweets, there are desserts built on milk, starch, fruit and bread. Kalbur tatlısı is Amasya's name for the dessert known elsewhere as kalburabastı. The dough, filled with walnuts, is shaped by rolling it by hand across the back of a sieve, baked in the oven and then soaked in cooled syrup. Vişneli ekmek also appears in the lists of some seventeen local dishes highlighted in the province's promotion, whereas fırın sütlaç is mentioned mostly in the longer lists of desserts.

Dene hasudası is made from starch, water, grape molasses or sugar, butter and walnuts; it cooks in a few minutes and is served warm. The starch mixture is added to butter heated in a copper pan and stirred with a wooden spoon until it becomes grainy. Elma tatlısı, the apple dessert, is made with the region's famous apples. The apples are peeled, cored, filled with a mixture of walnut and cinnamon and baked. In one recipe the apples are cooked in syrup together with sour cherries and served cold, topped with whipped cream. In Amasya's desserts the sour cherry meets not only bread but also apple, while quince and apricot are used in the fruit desserts called gayle.

Beyond everyday meals, dessert in Amasya is also part of the custom of hospitality. For the people of Amasya, receiving a guest is a virtue; it is said that being a guest is considered even more honourable than being a host. The table laid for a visitor who has come from afar and is expected to spend the night is called the "ağır misafir" (honoured guest) table. Six dishes are served on it: toyga soup, whole meat, rice pilaf, sini suböreği, okra and a dessert. In summer, patlıcan pehlisi (an aubergine dish) takes the place of the whole meat. For dessert, one of tırtıl baklava, kuymak or gömlek kadayıfı is served. Dessert also has its place in wedding customs. One of the three dishes of the velime meal, handed to the groom before he enters the bridal chamber, is tırtıl baklava. This arrangement recalls the known structure of the morning meals served after council meetings at the Ottoman palace, where six courses were likewise offered: a meat dish, a vegetable dish with meat, pilaf, sometimes börek, soup and a dessert.

Stories About the Origin of Vişneli Ekmek

There is no written document on where vişneli ekmek came from; what exists are two accounts, circulating in publications that introduce the local cuisine and differing slightly from each other. According to the first, a cake eaten at the princes' palace in Amasya was turned into vişneli ekmek by the skilful hands of a poor family. In this account the dessert is a palace sweet rebuilt with the means of the common kitchen: stale bread has replaced the cake, and butter and the syrup of sour cherries have replaced the cream. The second account is shorter and presents vişneli ekmek directly as "a kind of dessert eaten at the Amasya princes' palace". Thus the same dessert appears in one account as an imitation of the palace, and in the other as the palace's own sweet.

Neither account rests on a document; both are passed on as local memory. It is also clear that the phrase "yaş pasta" (cream cake) does not fit the terminology of the Ottoman palace kitchen and is a comparison phrased in today's language; which dessert was eaten at the princes' palace, in which period and at whose table, is not known. The palace of the princes who served as sanjak governors in Amasya no longer stands, and no register or recipe from its kitchen has been published. It is therefore more accurate to read the story as an example of how the city tells its own past through its cuisine. Even so, the story shows the two faces of the dessert well. On one side stands the palace memory of the city of princes, on the other a home kitchen that made it a principle never to throw bread away, and vişneli ekmek is seen as a dessert born between the two.

The Palace Confectionery and Amasya's Confectioners

Although the story linking vişneli ekmek to the palace cannot be documented, there is a documented link between Amasya and the sweet kitchen of the Ottoman palace. At Topkapı Palace, next to the sultan's private kitchen, there was a separate unit called the helvahane, the confectionery. Of the three gates leading from the Alay Meydanı courtyard into the palace kitchens, one was the gate of the helvahane. Here, alongside helva, various sherbets, jams, medicinal pastes, pickles, remedies and scented soaps were made. Besides flowers such as violet, rose and water lily, the sherbets of fruits such as mulberry, quince and sour cherry were also prepared in this unit. The most famous of its helvas was zülbâye helva. At the beginning of the second half of the sixteenth century the confectionery's staff consisted of eighteen confectioners; by the end of the century it had reached ten confectioners and forty-nine or fifty apprentices, and in the first half of the seventeenth century the number of its workers ranged between eighty-five and ninety.

Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya) records the lives of several men from Amasya who were trained in this confectionery. Serçe İbrahim Ağa, son of the cavalryman Hasan Ağa, was taken into the Enderun, the palace's inner service, as a child and trained in the confectionery; in 1093 (1682) he became steward of the confectioners, in 1096 (1685) chief confectioner (helvacıbaşı), and a man of influence in the Enderun. In Muharram 1099 (November 1687), after the accession of Süleyman II, he was dismissed under pressure from the rebels and sent back to his hometown, and his descendants became known in Amasya as the "Serçeoğulları". In the Enderun hierarchy the confectionery was attached to the chief of the pantry, and a young man trained there who proved his skill could rise to the upper ranks of the state; İbrahim Ağa's life is a typical example of this path.

The second example is Helvacı Hacı İsmail Ağa, son of Mehmed bin Hasan of the Gökmedrese quarter. He entered the Enderun young, was apprenticed to the confectionery, trained there and became steward of the confectioners. But because he offended İbrahim Ağa, the chief confectioner of the time, he was, upon the latter's complaint and following the accession incident of 1115 (1703), given a cavalry fief and sent to Amasya. İsmail Ağa built a second life in his hometown: he distinguished himself in the Pruth campaign, held the voivodeships of Zile, Tokat and Merzifon, and in 1139 (1726-27), as the chief notable of Amasya, took the administration of the sanjak into his own hands in practice. He died in the mid-1730s on the Iranian campaign, and his sons and grandsons were called the "Helvacıoğulları". Hüsameddin also records another İbrahim Ağa of Amasya, who married the daughter of this confectioner returned from the palace and later became sword-bearer, superintendent of barley and commander of a fortress.

The third name is Aşçıbaşı Hacı İbrahim Ağa. As the Enderun registers show, in his youth he entered the sultan's confectionery, trained there for many years, then became steward of the cooks and, at the accession of Selim III (1789), rose to the post of ser-tabbâhîn-i hâssa, that is, chief cook of the palace. He retired in 1218 (1803-04); his family came to be called the "Aşçızâdeler", and it was this family that built the Çöplüce Madrasa in Amasya. The fountain known in the city as Helvacı Pınarı also bears the name of another Helvacı Mehmed Ağa, who died in the seventeenth century. These records do not prove that vişneli ekmek has a palace origin; but they show that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries men from Amasya were trained in the palace unit where sour cherry sherbet, fruit jams and helvas were made, and that some of them returned home and joined the city's leading figures. It is possible that behind the local memory of a dessert from the princes' palace lies a general familiarity left by such people moving between the palace kitchen and the city.

Sugar, Molasses and Two Kitchens

In the classical Ottoman kitchen sugar was a luxury belonging to the palace and its circle; in the common kitchen, honey or grape molasses (pekmez) served as sweeteners. This distinction finds an interesting echo when one looks at Amasya's two bread desserts. The syrup of vişneli ekmek is obtained by cooking sour cherries with sugar, while in the registered recipe of unutma beni it is grape molasses that carries the weight of the syrup. It is striking that the dessert associated with the palace story is made with sugar, and the one associated with village bread with molasses. Today's recipes naturally do not mirror the kitchen of centuries ago, and there is no document from which to draw a firm conclusion from this correspondence. Still, when the two desserts are set side by side, it becomes easier to understand why local memory ties vişneli ekmek to the palace and unutma beni to a village home.

Preparing Vişneli Ekmek

The dessert is simple to prepare. According to the recipe based on Amasya's cookery book, one stale loaf, 250 grams of unsalted butter, a glass of walnuts, a kilo of pitted sour cherries and two glasses of granulated sugar are enough. The stale bread is cut into slices one centimetre thick, generously spread with butter at room temperature and toasted in the oven until it turns pink. The pitted cherries are cooked with sugar in a separate pot. The bread, straight from the oven, is soaked in the cherries' own juice. Once the cherries and bread have cooled, they are arranged on a serving dish, covered completely with the syrupy cherries, sprinkled with walnuts and served cold. Some versions add clotted cream on top, but this does not appear as a requirement in the recorded local recipes. Some descriptions say instead that the bread, after being toasted in butter, is added to cherries boiled in sugared water; the difference between the two recipes lies only in how long the bread meets the syrup.

The logic of the method is easy to see. Because the bread is first toasted in butter, its edges firm up and it does not fall apart as it absorbs the syrup, while its inside softens slowly. The tartness of the cherries cuts the heaviness of the sugar and butter, and the walnuts give the dessert a slight bite. In this way bread a day or two old becomes a dessert fit for the table. Being eaten cold also makes it suitable for the summer months. The generous measure of butter, a quarter kilo for a single loaf, does not fit entirely with the "poor family" account either; the bread is cheap, but the fat and sugar that turn it into a dessert are valuable ingredients set aside from the household pantry.

The dessert's tie to the sour cherry rests on the season. In cherry season the fresh fruit goes straight into the pot; out of season, cherries whose juice has been extracted and stored, or which have been made into jam, do the job. Given the habit of preparing for winter by drying and storing food in summer, it is not surprising that this dessert grew out of methods that keep a seasonal product on the table all year round. The sour cherry was a long-familiar fruit in the Ottoman kitchen as well; it is counted among the fresh and dried fruits used in the dishes and drinks of the classical period, and its sherbet was made in the palace confectionery. In vişneli ekmek the fruit gives both flavour and colour: the deep red syrup over the toasted bread is the dessert's most distinctive sight.

Unutma Beni and the Other Stale-Bread Dessert

Vişneli ekmek is not the only dessert in Amasya that relies on stale bread. Writings on the local cuisine note that stale bread, rather than being thrown away, was turned into a new dessert called "unutma beni". This dessert also brings bread together with syrup, but the syrup tastes different: in place of the sourness of cherries there is the dark sweetness of grape molasses. Following an application made by the Municipality of Ziyaret on 24 August 2022, unutma beni was registered on 20 November 2023 as an indication of source under the name "Amasya Unutma Beni Tatlısı". Its geographical boundary is the whole of Amasya province. The registration certificate defines it as a dessert made by slicing stale whole-wheat bread, dipping it into a mixture of boiling water, white sugar and grape molasses, and pouring walnut kernels over it; the certificate also states that it has a long history in the province's culinary culture and is frequently eaten on important occasions and at everyday meals.

The certificate gives a recipe for five people: 350 grams of white sugar, 700 millilitres of grape molasses, one litre of water, 500 grams of stale whole-wheat bread and 200 grams of walnut kernels. The water is brought to the boil, the sugar and molasses are added and stirred in, the stale village bread, cut into thick slices, is dipped into the boiling mixture and lifted out, walnuts are sprinkled on top, and the dessert is served on a tray or in portions. Inspection is entrusted to a three-member panel coordinated by the Municipality of Ziyaret, with one expert each from the municipality, the hotel, restaurant and catering services department of Amasya University, and the provincial directorate of agriculture and forestry; the panel checks that the ingredients, the method of production and the manner of serving conform to the recipe.

The registered recipe differs markedly from other recipes circulating in the region. In the recipe given in the municipality's city guide, water and molasses are boiled in a pot and, once lukewarm, poured over bread fried in butter; the dessert is left to rest for half an hour and served garnished with walnut kernels, pistachios and sour cherry jam. In the version described by local women's cooperatives, the stale village bread is first toasted in the oven, then soaked in a syrup made by boiling molasses with some water, and served on a tray with walnuts poured over it. The registered recipe has no frying or toasting stage; the bread is dipped directly into the boiling syrup. These differences arise from the ways the same dessert varies from house to house, and the registration has fixed one of them as the standard. The version garnished with sour cherry jam shows how close the two bread desserts stand to each other in Amasya's kitchen.

The dessert's name carries its own story. According to what is told in the city, the first to make it was a young woman who prepared it for her husband leaving for military service, so that he would not forget her, and the name "unutma beni" comes from this. This too is an account without documentary basis, handed down by word of mouth. Those who learned the recipe from their elders stress how cheap the dessert is; it is said that twenty portions of unutma beni can be made from a single village loaf. Women who have set up cooperatives in Amasya likewise emphasise its economy and its use of stale bread; in their words, unutma beni is the sweetest example of recycling.

Considered together, the two desserts reveal how Amasya's kitchen regards bread. In this cuisine bread is not counted as leftover bound for the bin; it forms the body of a dessert. In vişneli ekmek the tart fruit, butter and sugar come to the fore, in unutma beni the molasses and walnuts; in both there is a revaluing of what is already at hand. Both desserts have remained on a household scale and have not turned into the work of a specialised shop; their recipes are mostly learned at home from one's elders.

Fırın Sütlaç

Fırın sütlaç is counted among Amasya's local desserts and appears in the region's culinary records on the same list as vişneli ekmek. Its preparation follows the general Anatolian method. Milk and rice are cooked slowly, sugar is added, the mixture is divided among earthenware or porcelain bowls and put into the oven. The heat of the oven browns the surface, forming a thin, caramelised skin on top. Beneath this skin, broken with a spoon, lies a creamy rice pudding. It must be said that sources do not record in any detail a recipe or historical story specific to Amasya; its place in the region is known more for its role at the table than for any difference in recipe. The dessert has neither a registration nor a particular origin story told in the city.

The history of sütlaç itself, however, is long and can be traced through records cited by food historians. Mahmud al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk gives the recipe of a dessert called "uva": rice is cooked, placed in cold water, drained, sugar is added and it is eaten as a cooling dish. This is a rice dessert without milk, but it points to an old habit of combining rice with sugar. Sütlaç first appears under the names "sütlü aş" or "sütlü pirinç" (milk dish, milk rice) in fifteenth-century medical books and in the poems of Kaygusuz Abdal. Over time "sütlü aş" became sütlaç, and "güllü aş", made with rose water, followed the same linguistic path to become güllaç.

Sütlaç was one of the respected desserts of the Ottoman table. In the classical Ottoman kitchen, alongside flour-based sweets such as baklava, kadayıf and helva, aşure and sütlaç were counted among the "light desserts". According to food historians, the dessert also entered Italian cuisine and was served at a banquet given by Pope Pius V in 1570 as the third course, under the name "Turkish-style milk rice sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon". At the banquet given by the grand vizier after the English ambassador Lord John Finch had been received by Mehmed IV at Edirne Palace, sütlaç was also on the table. In the Ottoman Turkish cookery books of the nineteenth century, milk desserts form a group of their own, and the techniques in these books largely match those of today's Turkish cuisine.

Its role in Amasya is clear. The local cuisine has many dishes rich in butter, heavy with syrup or fried: sini suböreği, yakasal böreği, keşkek, bakla dolması. At the end of such a meal, a light and cool dessert like sütlaç is seen as a balancing choice after heavy food. The Ottoman kitchen's view of sütlaç as a "light dessert" fits this use. Its presence both at the everyday table and among the treats offered to guests comes from this flexibility.

Comparing the Two Desserts

Vişneli ekmek and fırın sütlaç stand at the two ends of the same tradition. Vişneli ekmek is the dessert of thrift, of making use of stale bread and preserving the seasonal fruit; it costs little, yet when butter, sour cherries and walnuts come together it takes on a rich appearance. Fırın sütlaç relies on the slow cooking of milk, rice and sugar and demands patience and a well-judged oven. One is cold, tart and syrupy, the other warm or cool, soft and caramelised. The story of vişneli ekmek is local, that of sütlaç imperial in scale: the first is tied to the palace in Amasya's own memory, the second is the provincial continuation of a dessert actually documented on palace tables and at ambassadors' banquets.

Looking at Amasya's cuisine as a whole, it is natural for these two desserts to live side by side in the same city. Those who write on the local cuisine note that the dishes of the city known as the City of Princes reached a flavour and appearance fit for sultans, while many recipes were nevertheless passed down from generation to generation in homes. The fact that each house makes the same recipe slightly differently is also a result of this transmission. The selection of a single recipe as the standard in the registration of unutma beni is an example of an effort to fix this variety; no such fixing has been done for vişneli ekmek or fırın sütlaç.

The Simplicity of the Ingredients

What these desserts share is the brevity of their ingredient lists. Bread, butter, sour cherries, sugar and walnuts come together, and vişneli ekmek is complete. Stale bread, molasses, sugar, water and walnuts make up unutma beni. Milk, rice and sugar are the whole of fırın sütlaç. Amasya's kitchen has given weight to these plain ingredients through technique, that is, through toasting, soaking in syrup and baking. That is why all three desserts find a place in the sweet course of the table at which a visitor to the region will taste its food.

Chronology

1570: "Turkish-style milk rice" is reported to have been served at a banquet given by Pope Pius V.

1682: Serçe İbrahim Ağa of Amasya becomes steward of the confectioners in the palace confectionery (AH 1093).

1685: Serçe İbrahim Ağa rises to chief confectioner (AH 1096).

1687: After the accession of Süleyman II, Serçe İbrahim Ağa is dismissed and sent back to his hometown (AH 1099).

1703: Hacı İsmail Ağa, steward of the confectioners, is sent to Amasya with a cavalry fief (AH 1115).

1726-27: Helvacı Hacı İsmail Ağa becomes chief notable of Amasya (AH 1139).

1789: Hacı İbrahim Ağa of Amasya, trained in the confectionery, becomes chief cook of the palace at the accession of Selim III.

1803-04: Chief cook Hacı İbrahim Ağa retires (AH 1218).

24 August 2022: The Municipality of Ziyaret applies for a geographical indication for "Amasya Unutma Beni Tatlısı".

20 November 2023: Amasya Unutma Beni Tatlısı is registered as an indication of source.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Özge Samancı, "Tarihsel Süreç İçinde Türk Mutfağı", Medipol SD Dergi, no. 62 (2022) medipol.edu.tr

Official sources

  • Vişneli Ekmek, Culture Portal, What to Eat in Amasya (source: Governorship of Amasya, Amasya Mutfağı Kitabı)
  • Yöre Mutfağı, Amasya Municipality City Guide

Other sources

  • Amasya Yöresel Tatları ve Yemek Rehberi, Turkey Outdoor
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  • Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, geographical indication registration certificate for Amasya Unutma Beni Tatlısı (20.11.2023)
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  • İdil Açıkalın, "Türk Mutfağının Gözbebeği Sütlü Tatlılar", Sabah, 26 January 2025
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Online sources