What’s Tulumba?

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Tulumba is a Balkan dessert made of fried dough, often shaped through pastry bags, deep-fried, and dipped in sweet syrup. It is commonly served with toppings such as cream, powdered sugar, chopped pistachios, walnuts, hazelnuts, or shredded coconut.

Tulumba is a type of dessert food made of fried dough popular in the Balkan region of Europe, as well as some parts of Turkey and other nearby areas. This simple dish doesn’t include many complex presentations, but it does have a few simple methodologies that cooks need to know to get the right texture and taste out of these little lumps of dough. An important aspect of this desert is its visual appearance, where the small pieces of tulumba have a wavy appearance, similar to other types of desserts such as churros popular in Latin America. In a more general sense, these desserts are also very similar to other fried bread recipes from around the world, such as the “funnel cakes” that are popular in North America.

In order to create a specific look for this desert food, cooks often simply squeeze the dough through shaped outlets, using pastry bags or similar tools. The pieces are then deep-fried and dipped in sweet syrup to give them their unique flavor. These can be served with various types of side dishes.

Tulumba is made up of basic ingredients. These include flour, eggs and water. Salt and sugar are also common. Some cooks may add other sweet elements to add more flavor to the snack.

The syrup used for tulumba is not very complicated. In many recipes, it contains sugar, water and lemon juice. Cooks may add many more ingredients to enhance the flavor of the finished product or purchase pre-cooked syrups, but authentic versions of the dish rely on simpler concoctions. The pieces of dough are dipped in the syrup to allow for adequate coverage, but not too much, to avoid a loss of texture.

Many recipes for tulumba call for these small items to be presented with other complementary ingredients. For example, cooks may top a five- or six-piece serving of tulumba with a small dollop of heavy cream. Powdered sugar is another topping that, while not authentic to regional preparations, is used in similar desserts in the Americas or elsewhere.

In the Turkish region, tulumba is often accompanied by chopped pistachios. Walnuts or hazelnuts can also be used. Additionally, some local versions of the dish include shredded coconut as a topping.




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