Hasuda is a winter dessert of Amasya tables, made from a few pantry staples (starch, water, grape molasses or sugar, and butter), served warm and topped with walnuts. It has none of the showiness of syrup-soaked pastry desserts; it is ready on the stove in well under half an hour, spooned into a bowl or onto a plate and eaten with a spoon. Among the regional dishes of the province it appears under the names "dene hasudası" and "peluza (hasuda)". In written sources the same dessert is spelled hasuda, hasuta, hasude, hasıda and haside, and the pronunciation and spelling shift a little from place to place. The name "tane hasude" that turns up in some sources refers to the way the dessert is crushed with a spoon and falls into small grains.

Hasuda is not tied to a single recipe. Some households use only starch and water, in others molasses dominates the flavor, and in some regions flour is toasted in place of starch. This variety suggests that the dessert is less an official recipe than a household habit. All the versions nonetheless rest on the same pattern: a grain component is cooked with water or grape must until it thickens, sweetened with molasses or sugar, enriched with fat and finished with walnuts.

Name and Place

The word hasuda is used across much of Anatolia for thick desserts cooked with flour, starch or grape molasses. Compilations record the same dessert in eastern Anatolia as hesida, hasude and hasita; in Bingöl it is said to be called maliyez, and it is known as a local sweet in Erzurum, Kars, Iğdır and Bayburt. A hasuda recipe is also given for the Tokat region. On the Black Sea coast, particularly in Sinop, a hasuda is made without refined sugar and sweetened only with molasses. No document shows in which of these places it first appeared; the origin of the dessert is disputed, and tying it to any single region rests on no solid evidence. The Amasya version is best understood as one branch of this wide family.

In Tokat, Amasya's nearest neighbor, the meaning of the word has also entered an official document. The geographical indication registered in 2017 for Zile Kömesi defines hasuda as "a regional dessert of pudding-like consistency prepared by cooking grape must, wheat starch and wheat flour together"; according to the document, hasuda can also be made with must and starch alone, flour being added to soften the texture. In the same area, walnuts strung on a thread are dipped into this hasuda and dried to make köme. The Central Black Sea Development Agency's publication on the region's food likewise writes, in its account of Tokat köme, that the walnuts are dipped into "the slurry made from grapes called hasuda". These records show that in the Yeşilırmak basin the name hasuda denotes a sweet must or molasses jelly thickened with starch. Amasya's molasses dene hasudası is very close to this definition; since the two cities share the same vineyard and walnut country the resemblance is not surprising, but no document shows that the two practices come from a common root, so this remains an inference.

In Amasya, hasuda appears in the dessert section of the list of regional dishes that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism compiled for the province. The same section includes kuymak, yuka tatlısı, ayva gailesi, apple dessert, baked rice pudding, gelin parmağı, gömlek kadayıfı, kalbur tatlısı, höşmerim, şeker böreği, unutma beni, sour cherry bread and zerdali gailesi. Within this crowd, hasuda is the dessert made with the fewest ingredients and in the least time. The list gives "dene hasudası" and "peluza (hasuda)" as separate names, and the parenthesis indicates that peluza refers to the same dessert as hasuda. The variety sweetened with molasses is called dene hasudası and is served warm.

The sources do not agree entirely on the names. In a paper presented at the international tourism and culinary conference held in Amasya in 2022, in which İbrahim İlhan, Kenan Pala and Yunus Doğan assess the regional dishes of Amasya from the standpoint of rural tourism, hasuda and paluze are listed in the dessert column as two separate desserts; the same column opens with apple dessert. That the ministry list presents peluza as another name for hasuda while the paper keeps them apart is the kind of divergence one would expect in a field where local names change from house to house and village to village. No dialect survey has been found that would settle which usage is the more widespread.

Basic Ingredients

The backbone of hasuda is wheat starch. The starch is whisked into cold water to make a smooth slurry, then heated until it reaches a gelatinous, semi-translucent consistency. The second ingredient is the sweetener. Some recipes use granulated sugar, some use grape molasses, and some use both. The third is butter, which is either melted into the mixture or heated until sizzling and poured over the finished dessert. Last comes crushed walnut. Walnuts are also used in other regional doughs in Amasya cuisine, such as the poppy seed and walnut pastry (haşhaşlı cevizli çörek), so the walnuts on top of hasuda do not look like a foreign addition.

Starch dissolves in cold water and sets when heated. For this reason the most important step in hasuda is to dissolve the starch completely before heating. If lumps remain, the dessert turns grainy; if the consistency is missed, it becomes a stiff paste. The way to control it is to stir constantly over low heat. Because the dessert thickens as it cools, a mixture that looks fluid when hot becomes firm enough to hold a spoon after a while in the bowl. Eating hasuda warm is therefore a matter of consistency as much as of taste.

From Vineyard to Pantry: Molasses, Walnuts and Wheat

The ingredients of hasuda come straight out of Amasya's vineyard and orchard economy. In the first volume of his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), Hüseyin Hüsameddin describes the vineyards stretching along the city's three rivers as Amasya's source of trade and treasury of prosperity, and writes that Amasya's apples, quinces, walnuts, cherries and wheat were held in first place all over the world. Two of the three basic ingredients of hasuda, walnuts and wheat, are part of this praise. The third, molasses, comes from the same vineyards: in a survey of pekmez, Aslı Uçar notes that grape molasses is made in every region with vineyards, but that quality production is concentrated in Tokat (Zile), Amasya, Kırşehir, Kastamonu and a few other areas.

Making molasses is the first step that decides the taste of hasuda. Grapes are picked over, crushed and pressed to obtain must. To keep the must from souring, a lime-rich earth known locally as "pekmez toprağı" (molasses earth) is added to it; the Zile Kömesi document gives the ratio as one kilo of earth to a hundred kilos of grapes. The clarified must is then boiled down. According to Uçar, Turks throughout history used grapes less for wine than for molasses, bulama, pestil, köfter, walnut sucuk and tarhana, and grew grapes mostly for drying. Hasuda is the link in this chain of winter preparations that is easiest to put together at home: if molasses is ready in the pantry and starch and walnuts are at hand, the dessert is on the stove in a few minutes.

The everyday place of molasses and walnuts in Amasya also appears in older records. Describing Çatal Hâfız Ahmed Efendi, who lived as a recluse in the room of the Hacı İlyas Mosque and died in 1806 (AH 1221), Hüsameddin writes that he never ate onion or garlic and that his food consisted of things such as bread, molasses, raisins, walnuts and dates. The passage does not mention hasuda; it only shows that the ingredients of hasuda were part of even the plainest table in the city.

Ways of Making It

What the recipes attributed to Amasya share is that they begin with a slurry. In one version, 100 grams of wheat starch, 50 grams of grape molasses, 30 grams of granulated sugar and 100 milliliters of water are mixed in a bowl to a paste. The mixture goes into a non-stick pan and is cooked over low heat, stirring constantly, until it absorbs its water. When it is done, melted butter is drizzled on top, the dessert is crushed with the tip of a spoon and served. This method is called tane hasude; in the six-serving recipe, preparation takes ten minutes and cooking thirty.

In the second method the starch is added to boiling water as a slurry. Four cups of water are brought to a boil, one cup of water with dissolved starch is added to the boiling water, and the mixture is cooked with stirring. Once done, the dessert is poured onto a tray, sizzling butter is drizzled over it, walnuts are scattered and it is eaten hot. Since no sweetener is used in this method, the result is plain, and the aroma of butter and walnut comes forward. Some compilations present Amasya hasuda in this simple form, made with starch, sugar, butter and water.

A large-scale example of the same technique is the hasuda boiled in Zile for köme. According to the document, forty liters of must are boiled in a copper or steel cauldron, and seven liters of it are set aside to cool. Three kilos of wheat starch and, optionally, half a kilo of flour are mixed with this cold must to make a fluid, even "maya"; if it is too thick, must is added, and if too runny, starch. The strained maya is added little by little to must boiling at ninety degrees and stirred without pause with a wooden paddle called a güdel, otherwise it scorches and sticks to the cauldron. Dissolving the starch first in cold liquid and only then adding it to the hot liquid is also the basic rule of the home recipe in Amasya; the difference between forty liters in a cauldron and four cups at home is only one of scale.

The third method is the molasses version known as dene hasudası. Wheat starch, water and molasses are made into a slurry, butter is heated separately and added over the slurry. The dessert is plated, garnished with walnut meat and eaten warm. It is sweetened by the dark taste of molasses without any need for refined sugar. The hasuda of the Sinop region is likewise made with four ingredients and no refined sugar: starch is whisked smooth in 300 milliliters of water, cooked in a pot, and once it thickens, butter and walnuts are added and it is served.

Methods that use flour lead to a different taste. Flour is toasted in butter until it smells toasty and turns slightly golden, sugar and molasses are dissolved in water in a separate bowl, and this molasses water is added to the flour little by little. It is stirred constantly to prevent lumps, and when it thickens, one more spoonful of butter is added. In some regions butter and sugar are toasted together, in some the flour is toasted without fat and cooled before being cooked with the other ingredients, and in some so much butter is added that the fat rises to the surface as the dessert cooks, at which point it is taken off the heat. Elsewhere the butter is heated and poured over the finished dessert. A hasuda made with flour, molasses and butter is darker in color and closer to halva.

Hasuda belongs to a wide family of Anatolian sweets in which molasses is thickened with starch or flour. Köfter, as described in Uçar's survey, is a clear example: in Kırşehir, during the winter preparations, molasses is boiled with flour until it turns to jelly and is then poured into trays to set; around Ankara, molasses, starch and water are mixed and cooked to a pudding-like consistency, poured onto thin trays dusted with starch, and cut into diamonds once dry. In pestil making, too, starch that has first been mashed with lukewarm must is added to the boiling must when it is close to becoming molasses. For walnut sucuk or köme, molasses, starch or flour and water are cooked to a pudding consistency, and walnuts strung on a thread are dipped into the mixture and hung to dry.

In all these sweets the first stage is a hot jelly very similar to hasuda itself. The difference lies in what is done with the jelly: in hasuda it is spooned into a bowl while hot and eaten, in köfter it is set in a tray, in pestil it is spread on cloth and dried, and in köme it is wrapped layer by layer around the walnuts. In this sense hasuda can be seen as the simplest, immediately eaten form in this chain of sweets where molasses meets starch; the sources do not make this classification explicitly, and it is an assessment drawn from comparing the recipes.

Sweets in which molasses was combined with starch were also known in the palace kitchen. Uçar, drawing on Ayşe Baysal, writes that molasses was used as the sweetener in the mulberry, kavut, millet, flour and starch halvas made in the halva kitchen of Mehmed the Conqueror. Before sugar became widespread, the sweeteners of Turkish desserts were honey and molasses. This information does not concern hasuda itself, but it shows that a starch sweet sweetened with molasses has an old place in Anatolian cooking.

Hasuda in Amasya Cuisine

Amasya cuisine rests on the richness of the region's plant life, together with its historical life and ecology. In the ministry's list, the soups include çatal çorba, sakala çarpan, toyga soup, çılbır, helle soup, kesme ibik soup and yarma soup; the meat dishes include stuffed broad beans, okra with meat, keşkek, liver wraps, göbek dolması, madımak, mıhlama, mumbar, tripe, beet with pastırma, patlıcan pehli, pastırma pağallemesi, pirpirim, liver in vinegar and sulu köfte. Among the dough dishes are Amasya çörek, katmer, pumpkin pilaf, bişi, akıtma, döndürme, ekmek aşı, eli böğründe, poppy seed and walnut pastry, hengel, meatless manti, kaypak, tray börek, yakasal böreği and yanuç. The weight of this table lies in cracked wheat, bulgur, fat and dough; at the end of such a meal, a light, warm spoon dessert like hasuda suits better than a heavy syrup dessert.

Some compilations mention this rich dessert table with hasuda and dene hasudası alongside kalbura bastı, apple dessert and Amasya çörek. Of these, hasuda asks for the least preparation, so it sits closer to everyday life than the pastry desserts that meet syrup, such as kalbura bastı. That regional products like walnut and molasses are enough for it also shows the relation the city has with its apple, walnut and grape orchards.

Recent academic work also counts dene hasudası among the distinctive products of Amasya cuisine. Kenan Pala's article published in 2026, which examines the development of gastronomy tourism in Amasya through the views of tourism professionals, notes that the city's position between Central Anatolia and the Black Sea has diversified its cuisine, and names dene hasuda among the products that stand out in the regional kitchen, together with toyga soup, sakala çarpan, stuffed broad beans, Amasya keşkek, Amasya çörek, okra flowers with meat, bat and apple dessert. The Central Black Sea Development Agency's promotional publication also lists dene hasudası, with ayva gailesi, gelin parmağı, gömlek kadayıfı and höşmerim, among the desserts served in the historic Amasya mansions restored as hotels and restaurants. That a dessert from the home kitchen has entered the menus of mansion restaurants shows that it is accepted as carrying a regional identity.

Measures and Times

The measures in recipes differ from one another, and this difference confirms that hasuda is a home dessert. In the starch-based tane hasude, 50 grams of molasses, 30 grams of granulated sugar and 20 grams of butter are considered enough for 100 grams of starch; the total time is forty minutes. In a recipe made with flour, half a cup of molasses, half a cup of water, 100 grams of butter and one cup of flour are brought together; the amount of flour is adjusted to the thickness of the molasses, and the mixture should have the consistency of crepe batter. This mixture is whisked in a separate bowl while the butter melts, added to the melted butter and cooked over low heat. First it gathers, then it releases its butter on top; when the butter rises, the heat is turned off and the dessert is eaten hot. In another recipe, four tablespoons of flour are toasted in two tablespoons of butter, and four tablespoons of granulated sugar and three tablespoons of molasses are added to three cups of water; preparation of this two-serving portion takes about twenty-five minutes.

None of these measures can be called Amasya's standard on its own. Still, all of them share an order that does not change: a toasted or dissolved grain component, molasses and sugar as sweeteners, fat, and walnut at the very end. The molasses version described as made in Amasya is the plainest form of this order, without sugar.

Serving and Place at the Table

In every recipe hasuda is eaten warm or hot. It is divided into small bowls and topped with walnuts. It can be eaten after the evening meal with tea, and when guests arrive it comes to the table as a treat because it is prepared quickly. Since its ingredients are never missing from the pantry it is not tied to a season, yet it is known as a dessert of cold winter evenings.

The place of hasuda in Amasya is related to the ease of its preparation. Homemade wheat starch, grape molasses and walnuts were the household's own produce in the villages of the region. When these three came together, a sweet table treat emerged without the need to buy anything from outside. The association of the dessert with winter fits this: grapes are turned into molasses in autumn, walnuts are gathered in autumn, and both were kept in the pantry through winter. Research on molasses consumption confirms this seasonal link: a study cited by Uçar found that winter is the season in which molasses is eaten most.

Molasses Hasuta and the Postpartum Tradition

Accounts in the local press about molasses hasuta in Amasya show what the dessert means in daily life. Ayşe Dip of Amasya is described as eighty-four years old in a news report published in 2024 and as eighty-six in one published in 2025. She says they grew grapes in the village, made molasses and starch, and had their own walnuts; when she made hasuta, she would gather her sons, daughters, grandchildren, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law around her. She adds that the dessert contains no additives apart from natural sugar and that it used to be fed to women who had given birth. Her daughter Hatice Gürgen recalls that her mother always made hasuta in their childhood, that molasses and walnuts were plentiful in the village, and that she makes it for her own children too but gets the answer "it doesn't taste like grandmother's."

That molasses hasuta contains no sugar is given in these accounts as the reason the dessert counted both as a treat and as a nourishing food. Molasses and starch are said to give energy, which is why it was fed to women after childbirth. This is a folk belief and a family account; it does not amount to medical confirmation. The custom of giving molasses to pregnant and nursing women is not peculiar to Amasya either: Uçar writes that, because of its high mineral content, molasses is recommended in the diet of children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and people recovering from illness, and according to a study she cites, some pregnant women eat molasses to prevent anemia. The fact that postpartum nutrition in village life was supported with foods available at home, such as molasses, walnuts and starch, is important for understanding what the dessert was for; in these accounts hasuda is also seen as a source of strength built from the ingredients at hand.

Aysel Ortaköylü of Amasya also says that she makes the hasuta recipe she learned from her mother for her children and grandchild. The accounts show that the recipe passes by word of mouth among women. This also explains why measures and order differ a little in every recipe; the measures are often set by eye and by the habit of the hand.

In written sources the dessert often appears as hasuta, and the local press prefers this form. There is no dictionary or recipe authority to say which spelling is correct; both forms point to the same dessert. For Amasya generations, the moment the dessert reaches the table matters as much as its name: it is remembered as a winter-evening treat, still steaming in the bowl, sprinkled with walnuts and shared with spoons.

Nutritional Value

Hasuda is a high-carbohydrate, energy-dense dessert. In a recipe made with flour, sugar, molasses and butter, one serving has been calculated at about 440 calories; in starch-based methods this value can vary. Molasses is rich in minerals such as iron and calcium; according to Uçar, molasses can meet a significant part of the daily requirement for calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium. The amount of molasses that goes into hasuda is small, however, and a single serving cannot be expected to cover a significant part of that requirement. Butter carries saturated fat. Because it raises blood sugar quickly, it is not suitable for people with diabetes. For this reason it is recommended to eat it in small portions after a balanced meal. It is also noted that it can be a good source of energy on cold days when energy is needed quickly.

Hasuda Today

The common emphasis of reports published in the local press in 2023, 2024 and 2025 is that molasses hasuta is no longer made in Amasya as often as before. Fast-consumption habits and the change in village life are counted among the reasons; starch is no longer made at home, and molasses and walnuts have become, for most families, products that are bought. The background to this decline can also be seen in national figures: according to data cited by Uçar, in the 1960s 37 percent of the fresh grapes produced in Turkey were processed into molasses, a share that fell to 35 percent in the 1970s and 18 percent in the 1980s, while sugary products such as jam and marmalade came to be eaten more widely in its place. The retreat of hasuda, a dessert built on molasses, from home kitchens fits this general change; no consumption data compiled separately for Amasya has been found, however.

Even so, the recipe continues in some homes, returns to conversation when the weather turns cold, and attracts the interest of those looking for nostalgic flavors because it is sugar-free and natural. The older generation wants the recipe to be passed on to the coming generations. The appearance of dene hasudası in academic studies and regional promotional publications suggests that the dessert could also find a place in gastronomy tourism; no field data has been found showing to what extent this has happened.

The place of hasuda in Amasya's dessert culture remains modest beside desserts that carry a geographical indication or are tied to the palace kitchen. For some desserts, such as Amasya walnut and honey baklava, a palace-kitchen story circulates that reaches back to the years when Mehmed the Conqueror was a prince in Amasya. No reliable record connects hasuda to such a story. While the jelly of the same name in neighboring Zile has entered a geographical indication document as a component of köme, there is no such registration for Amasya's dene hasudası. Hasuda is a dessert that found its place in the kitchens of village and neighborhood homes, and it takes its value from there.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • İbrahim İlhan, Kenan Pala, Yunus Doğan, "Yöresel Amasya Yemeklerinin Kırsal Turizm Kapsamında Değerlendirilmesi", ITCC'22 I. International Tourism and Culinary Conference proceedings, Amasya, 27–28 October 2022, pp. 529 ff. conference2022.amasya.edu.tr
  • Kenan Pala, "Amasya'da gastronomi turizminin geliştirilmesi: turizm profesyonellerinin görüşleri", To & Re, 8(1), 2026, pp. 230–244

Official sources

  • Aslı Uçar, "Geleneksel Türk Tadı: Pekmez", Atatürk Culture Center publication (ayk.gov.tr), pp. 1383–1395

Other sources

  • Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Zile Kömesi geographical indication document, registration no. 224, 1 November 2017
  • Central Black Sea Development Agency (OKA), Lezzet (promotional publication on the region's cuisine)
  • Tane Hasude Tarifi (Amasya Yöresi Mutfağı), 1001 Yemek Tarifi
  • Amasya'nın meşhur yemekleri (compilation based on the Ministry of Culture and Tourism list), Milliyet
  • Amasya Mutfağı, Amasya Postası
  • Amasya'nın Unutulmaya Yüz Tutan Lezzeti: Pekmezli Hasuta, Objektif Amasya, 3 December 2025 objektifamasya.com
  • Amasya'da Unutulan Lezzet: Hasuta, Objektif Amasya, 1 December 2024
  • Amasya'nın Unutulmaya Yüz Tutmuş Tatlısı "Pekmezli Hasuta", Objektif Amasya, 24 December 2023
  • Recipe compilations for hasuda recipes and regional names (Nefis Yemek Tarifleri, Lezzet, Yemeknet, Gastromanya)

Online sources