Kadayif (kataifi) is a pastry made of hair-thin strands of wheat batter, cooked for a few seconds on a hot plate until they set into pale, dry threads. Turks call the raw strands tel kadayıf, wire kadayif. Baked with butter and pistachio and finished with syrup, they become burma kadayif, künefe and, lately, the crunch inside Dubai chocolate.
Below: what the strands are made of, the names the pastry goes by in five languages, every member of the family in one table, why it vanished from supermarket shelves in 2024, and how to buy the finished dessert from the Istanbul and Gaziantep houses that have been baking it for generations.
What is kadayif made of?
Flour, water and a pinch of salt or starch, nothing else. The batter is thin, closer to crêpe batter than to dough. In a kadayif workshop it goes into a container with a row of fine holes, and the maker moves it across a wide, slowly turning hot plate. Each hole lays down one thread. The threads cook in seconds, without browning, and come off the plate as a loose, soft skein that looks like uncooked vermicelli.
That skein is the raw material. It is not sweet, not buttery and not crisp yet. Everything people love about kadayif desserts happens afterwards: melted butter worked through the strands, a filling of Antep pistachio or walnut, a hot oven, and a sugar syrup poured on while the pastry is still crackling.
Two things follow. Kadayif is a wheat product, so it contains gluten. And it is fragile: the strands dry out within hours, which is why the workshops that make them usually bake with them the same day.
Kadayif, kataifi or kunafa: one pastry, many names
They are the same thing. Kadayıf is the Turkish word (say ka-da-YUHF; the dotless ı is a short "uh"). Kataifi is the Greek spelling, and the one most English-speaking shops print on the dough. In Arabic the strands are called kunafa (knafeh), and the dessert made from them takes the same name. English never settled on a word of its own: labels say shredded phyllo, shredded filo dough or angel hair pastry, and none of them is wrong.
One trap. Turkish also has ekmek kadayıfı, bread kadayif, which is a completely different dessert: a flat, dried bread soaked in syrup and served under a slab of kaymak (clotted cream). It shares the name and nothing else. Yassı kadayıf, a thick pancake-like disc folded around walnuts, is another cousin that never meets the shredding plate.
The kadayif family: burma, tel, sultani and the rest
Most of the confusion around kadayif comes from one word covering both the raw strands and half a dozen desserts. This table separates them.
| Name | What it is | Texture | Filling | How it is eaten |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tel kadayıf (raw strands) | The uncooked pastry threads | Soft, pale, dry | None | An ingredient, sold by weight to bakers and home cooks |
| Burma kadayıf | Strands rolled tightly around a nut filling, baked, syruped (burma means twist) | Crisp shell, dense chewy centre | Antep pistachio or walnut | Short rolls at room temperature, with coffee or tea |
| Tel kadayıf tatlısı (string or wire kadayif) | Strands laid loose in a tray over a nut layer, baked, syruped | Lighter, crunchier, more open | Pistachio | Squares from the tray; the airy one |
| Sultani kadayıf | The palace-style version: a crisp kadayif base under a thick pistachio layer | Crisp base, soft green top | Ground pistachio | Small, rich portions |
| Halep (Aleppo) or Ottoman kadayıf | Very fine strands in a thin layer, often over milk cream | Delicate, buttery, softer | Pistachio, milk cream | Cold or at room temperature; the gift-box one |
| Künefe | Kadayif pressed around unsalted cheese, cooked in a pan, syruped | Crisp outside, molten inside | Cheese | Hot, straight from the pan, with pistachio and kaymak |
| Ekmek kadayıfı | Not shredded pastry at all: a dried bread soaked in syrup | Spongy, syrup-heavy | None | Cold, with kaymak |
If you want to know which to order first: burma for the classic pistachio crunch, tel kadayıf if you prefer it lighter, Ottoman kadayıf with milk if you like your dessert soft. Künefe is the one to make at home, because it has to be eaten hot; our künefe recipe walks through it pan by pan.
What does kadayif taste like?
Butter first, then the nut, then syrup. A good pistachio burma tastes the way baklava would if the pastry were shattered into threads: the outside snaps, the inside gives, and the syrup is there to carry the pistachio rather than to drown it. Walnut versions are darker and rounder. In Gaziantep some bakers cook the syrup with mulberry molasses (pekmez), which leaves a faint fruit note behind the sugar.
It is sweeter than most European pastries and less sweet than most people expect. The reason is the syrup: in Türkiye it goes on hot, in one pass, and a properly made tray is dry to the touch, not sticky. Wet, heavy kadayif has usually been oversoaked to hide tired pastry.
Turks eat it in small pieces with unsweetened Turkish coffee or black Turkish tea, which cut the syrup. A spoon of kaymak beside it is the Istanbul way; a scoop of plain ice cream is the Antep way.
Why is everyone suddenly asking for kadayif? Dubai chocolate
Because of a chocolate bar. In 2021 a small chocolatier in Dubai filled a milk chocolate shell with pistachio cream and toasted kadayif, and by 2024 the bar had travelled around the world on TikTok. The crunch that made it famous is kadayif, nothing more exotic. Supermarket copies followed, then a run on the raw strands: through 2024 and 2025 shoppers from Germany to Sweden were asking which aisle Lidl, Aldi or ICA keeps them in, and in many weeks the honest answer was none.
That scarcity also answers another common question, why kadayif is so expensive. The strands themselves are cheap flour and water. What costs money is the pistachio (Antep pistachio prices climbed steeply in 2024 and 2025), the butter, and the labour: a burma roll is still rolled by hand, one at a time.
To be clear about what we sell: we do not ship raw kadayif strands. They would arrive as crumbs. What we ship is the finished dessert, baked in Istanbul and Gaziantep by houses that have been rolling kadayif for well over a century, which is a better first meeting with the pastry than a chocolate bar in any case.
Is kadayif similar to baklava?
Same family, different pastry. Baklava is built from paper-thin sheets of yufka (phyllo), several dozen to a tray, layered with pistachio and butter. Kadayif uses threads instead of sheets, so the texture is looser and crunchier, and it takes syrup differently: the strands hold it on their surface rather than soaking it up between layers. Filling, syrup and the pistachio are shared, which is why the two sit side by side in every Istanbul pastry shop and in the same gift tray. If baklava has felt too dense or too sweet, tel kadayıf is the lighter cousin worth trying. (What we wrote about gluten-free baklava applies here in reverse: the strands are wheat, and there is no gluten-free kadayif in our range.)
How to store kadayif
Kadayif desserts are stored the way baklava is: in their tray, covered, at cool room temperature, and eaten within four or five days. The fridge is the enemy of the butter, which sets hard and turns the strands leathery; if you must refrigerate, let a piece come back to room temperature before eating. Freezing works for about a month in an airtight container, thawed at room temperature, never in the microwave. Boxed varieties with milk cream carry their own storage line on the label; follow that one.
Where to buy kadayif
In every market we looked at, the question people ask most is not what kadayif is but where to find it, and the answer from supermarket shelves has been patchy for two years. We send the finished desserts from Türkiye: Karaköy Güllüoğlu (baking in Istanbul since 1949, with roots in Gaziantep), Hafız Mustafa (Istanbul, since 1864) and Tahmis of Gaziantep, along with the rest of the kadayif collection. Each tray travels in the maker's own packaging, and trays over $100 ship free worldwide.
Frequently asked questions
Is kadayif the same as kataifi?
Yes. Kadayıf is the Turkish name and kataifi the Greek one; the pastry, hair-thin strands of cooked wheat batter, is identical. Shops in English-speaking countries mostly use the Greek spelling for the raw dough and the Turkish one for the finished desserts.
What is kadayif called in English?
There is no native English word. Packets say shredded phyllo dough, shredded filo or angel hair pastry, and recipe sites use kataifi. If you are looking for the dessert rather than the dough, search for burma kadayif or tel kadayif.
Is kadayif gluten-free?
No. The strands are made from wheat flour, so every kadayif dessert contains gluten; if you avoid gluten, this is not the tray for you. Most versions also contain butter and pistachio or walnut, and the makers list traces of other nuts. Check the product page for the full ingredient and allergen list.
Can you freeze kadayif?
Yes, for up to about a month, wrapped airtight in its tray. Thaw at room temperature; the microwave melts the butter and softens the strands. Fresh is best, frozen is fine, refrigerated is the worst of the three.
Why is kadayif so expensive right now?
Pistachio. Antep pistachio prices climbed steeply in 2024 and 2025 while demand from Dubai chocolate rose, and a burma roll is still rolled by hand, one at a time. The strands themselves are only flour and water.
Is kadayif healthy?
Search engines get that question a lot, and we are the wrong people to answer it. We bake and ship dessert, so here is what we can tell you: flour strands, clarified butter, pistachio, sugar syrup. For anything beyond that, your doctor beats a food blog.
Kadayif, then: shredded wheat pastry, Turkish by name, Greek by spelling, Arab by cousin, and the same strands whether they end up in a burma roll, a pan of künefe or a chocolate bar. Skip the supermarket hunt; the finished trays travel from Istanbul in a few days. Related reading: how to make künefe, is baklava gluten-free? and Turkish delight, the complete guide.
