Zak is an Evazi dessert that is loved by almost every member of the older generation, but is obscure to everyone our age.

I fault bad marketing.

We grew up with TV brainwashing us into expecting our desserts to be chocolatey, sugary and laced with food coloring. As a consequence, anything that has slightly less sugar than the obscene amount that our brains expect is seen as savory and funky. So it’s no surprise that growing up, I was completely turned off by a dessert that had cumin¹ seeds on it, and whose source of sweetness came from dates.

I got really lucky last summer as my phase to being open to new food coincided with being in Dubai… and I tried my aunt’s Zak, something that I’d been avoiding religiously for 24 years!

As the Zak’s richness coated my mouth I was sorely regretting not trying it earlier. But… there’s a massive smile on my face writing this: regrets only make us who we are. We live and we learn, and it’s never too late to do so.

And that’s what I did: I learnt how to make Zak: a creamy, interesting and healthy dessert that is perfect for warm summer days.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of powdered milk (My aunt uses Nido)
• 1 cup of water
• 1 medium egg²
• Half a teaspoon of salt
• Cumin seeds

To serve with:

• syrupy dates³

Preparation

Add the powdered milk, water, salt and egg to a bowl and mix with an immersion blender. You can use a normal blender too. If you don’t have either, then you can try to mix it with a fork but in my experience you won’t get a smooth consistency.

Put the mixture in your desired baking dish, and then cook with bain-marie at 180 degrees. At around 5-10 minutes⁴ the top will start to set. At this point sprinkle cumin seeds. Then bake for another 30 minutes.

It’s that simple! Let it cool before serving with syrupy dates.

Can we make Zak using fresh milk?

So apparently, before my aunt’s time, they used to make zak with raw milk. I asked her if she’s been able to make it with any type of fresh milk and she told me that it turns out too liquidy. Sadly it seems to me that the knowledge of making zak using fresh milk has been lost.

Still, since this dish is fairly simple to make I was curious to see how it turns out with fresh milk, so asked my aunt for what she did. She told me to replace the milk powder and water with just 1 cup of fresh milk, and to double the amount of egg. I decided to use jersey milk to get closer to the fat content in raw milk.

Here you can see that I didn’t use a blender, which is why you see some of the yolk. The biggest difference when using fresh milk is that the top starts to form a layer (as milk does when you heat it). At this point I decided to take it out of the oven as I was worried of it burning, which meant that it didn’t set too well. As soon as I took a bite though, I understood that it wasn’t just the cooking time that affected how it set: it was also the extra egg, whose flavor could not be ignored!

This wasn’t too bad though because through this experiment I discovered an alternative way of making eggs for breakfast. The texture and flavor were reminiscent of that of scrambled eggs, but with the firmness and mouthfeel of an omelette. This is an excellent way to boogiefy eggs as well, which I’m gonna play around with⁵.

As far as making zak with fresh milk goes. I challenge my aunt’s method. I would try this again with 1 cup of milk and 1 egg, and see where that takes me. The fat content would not be the same as that of powdered milk though, so I’m curious to see what happens to the zak.

Concluding Remarks

I was pretty satisfied with this recipe because it turned out almost exactly the way my aunt makes it. As mentioned before, I’m curious to replicate the experiment with using fresh milk to see if I can get the texture right, and I might try to make a low-fat version of this to see how much it differs.

1. Seriously though cumin on desserts is taking “adult” taste a bit too far ↩︎
2. Note that the original recipe calls for one large egg, but I opted for a medium one since the cups my aunt uses in Dubai are typically larger than the ones we have here. ↩︎
3. Ideally you should make these yourself and store them in a cool dry place… but adding date syrup to dates is also a good substitute. You can also just have it with dates (but I encourage you to go the extra mile 😉)
   
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4. My aunt says 5… but it’s usually more like 10 ↩︎
5. I’m thinking instead of cumin, soy sauce and sesame seeds with some green onions would take this to a new level… ↩︎