Diples is a Greek dessert made from fried dough covered in citrus syrup and sesame seeds. It can be shaped into decorative forms and is often made with honey. The dough is flavored with ouzo and can contain nuts and citrus zest.
Diples, also called thiples, is a Greek dessert made from fried, deep-fried dough covered in a citrus syrup and covered in toasted sesame seeds. While plain diples can come in any shape, cooks experienced in making this dessert can shape it into a variety of decorative shapes, such as tubes or rosettes. This dish is often made with a sugar-citrus-based syrup, but the traditional version uses honey.
Diples dough is rolled out before being fried. When fried, it curls up and bubbles when crispy. Some diples are designed to look like blooming flowers, while others resemble something closer to a chip or unfilled rolled up taco.
In its less decorated form, this dessert looks a lot like the deep-fried wonton sheets served at many Chinese restaurants, but is generally less bumpy and fizzy. Made without an extra visual flair, they are very similar to square chips. The syrup coating gives these crunchy delicacies a slight sheen.
The dough used to make diples is typically made from eggs, milk and wheat flour in addition to the flavoring agents used to give them their spicy citrus flavor. The dough also often contains chopped nuts. Diples are usually served cold a day or two after being fried. They are rarely eaten fresh. Because this crunchy pastry dish is often topped with a honey-based syrup, it’s sometimes compared to baklava, a treat made with a special dough dough and honey, but diples are much simpler to make.
Some recipes include lemon zest as part of the pastry mix, lending a citrus flavor to the dough. Other recipes leave the citrus fruits out of the dough but call for the zest to be included in the syrup coating the diples. Still others call for citrus in both the dough and the syrup, which gives the dish a more assertive citrus flavor.
Diples pastry dough is usually flavored with ouzo, a common alcoholic drink in Greece. Ouzo is a flavored alcohol, a spiced liqueur made by distilling alcohol with spices, most often aniseed, but can also include other spices such as cloves and cinnamon. The alcohol used for ouzo is usually originally made from grape skins. Real ouzo is produced only in Greece. Less commonly, it’s made with a drink called Mataxa brandy, which is a special blend of brandy and wine.
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