Luqaimat

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Luqaimat are delicious Middle Eastern style doughnut balls, also called lokma, lugaimat or awameh (or loukoumades in Greek). They are crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside, and absolutely delicious drizzled with a homemade sugar syrup. The batter comes together so easily!

What are luqaimat?

They are little Arabic sweet dumplings, made with a yeasted batter, and usually served with a fragrant sugar syrup or date syrup. When done right, they are crisp on the outside, and light and airy on the inside.

Luqaimat literally translates to “little bites”, and are also known as lugaimat in the Gulf region of the Middle East. We also call these luqmat al qadi. In Jordan and other Levantine regions, they call these awameh or awamat. Delicious!

Luqaimat origin way back to at least the 13th century, mentioned in cookbooks at the time, and spread across the region of the Middle East, Turkish, Cyprus, and Greece.

Why should I try making these Middle Eastern donuts?

They have such a distinctive consistency. When done right, they have a crunchy outer shell, and soft yielding batter on the inside. The orange blossom rose water syrup is my favorite accompaniment, and it’s made so easily.

They don’t need to be perfectly shaped by any means unlike traditional donuts. Half the fun is seeing what shape fritter you’ll get frying in the oil!

I researched, recipe tested, and went through numerous trials (and quite a few oil burn spatter injuries lol) until I came up with the best luqaimat recipe. The easy part will be you making them! No knead, one time frying, just simple and straightforward.

These are a quintessential Ramadan dessert, very popular in the holy month of fasting, in which they often make an appearance on any Ramadan dessert table.

Ingredients you need for luqaimat:

For the sugar syrup: Sugar, water, squeeze of lemon juice, rose water and orange blossom water.

For the luqaimat batter: flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, salt, instant yeast, and water. All very simple and straightforward pantry ingredients.

Plus vegetable oil for frying! You’ll need to fill up the saucepan or skillet with a few inches of oil because the luqaimat expand a lot while cooking, and you don’t want to shallow fry them or they’ll flatten on the bottom!

How to make the perfect lugaimat:

1. Make the sugar syrup so it’s ready whenever the lugaimat are: Combine the sugar, water and lemon juice. Set on a stovetop over medium high heat. Stir just to combine then let it be. Once off the heat, stir in rose water and orange blossom water, and transfer to a bowl to cool.
2. Make the lugaimat batter: Add the flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, instant yeast, salt and oil to a large bowl. Slowly add in the lukewarm water (starting with 1/2 cup) until the mixture looks like cake batter, or a thick pancake batter. You may need to add up to 3/4 a cup of water. Cover the bowl and let it rise for 30 minutes.
3. After the resting time is over, add enough vegetable oil to a saucepan to come up a few inches. Heat over medium high heat, then test the temperature by adding a drop of batter. If it floats and darkens too quickly, oil is too hot, if it takes a long time to start sizzling it needs to heat more.
4. Place the batter into a large freezer or Ziploc bag, and snip off the corner of the bag (a makeshift piping bag)
5. Squeeze the bag gently and use kitchen scissors you dipped in oil (to prevent the batter sticking) to snip little teaspoon sized dollops of batter carefully into the oil.
6. Fry for a few minutes, moving the batter around in the hot oil with a slotted spoon to evenly cook all sides.
7. Once golden brown, move to a paper towel lined plate to drain for a few seconds. Keep cooking the remaining batter in batches without overcrowding the oil.
8. Drizzle the sugar syrup generously over the lugaimat and allow them to soak in the syrup for a few minutes (or place them in a bowl to soak with the sugar syrup). Enjoy warm! Or room temp, still delicious.

What’s the easiest method of frying luqaimat (awamat)?

I tried a few different ways, like filling an empty small plastic water bottle with the batter, drilling a little hole into the plastic lid of the water bottle and squeezing out little dollops of batter. Way more trouble than it’s worth!

The easiest frying method I found is to just fill a large freezer bag or Ziploc bag with all the dough, cut off a small corner of the bag, and using kitchen scissors that I dipped in some vegetable oil to prevent sticking, squeeze the bag over the hot oil until batter comes out, then snip the batter into little balls as it drops.

The best way to demonstrate this is definitely in the video below!

What to serve these with:

My preferred method is the fragrant homemade sugar syrup in this recipe. Some people prefer drizzling some date syrup on top instead, or making a saffron syrup.

You can optionally sprinkle sesame seeds on top as well.

You can make these less traditional and serve them with Nutella or Biscoff lotus spread on top, kids would love that! Or try a salted caramel orange blossom sauce.

These go beautifully with mint tea, or karak chai.

Storing leftovers:

As with most donuts, these are best enjoyed fresh. I especially like these warm, but they are still good at room temperature for a couple hours after frying.

You can store leftovers in an air tight container on the counter or in the fridge, but they’ll most likely lose their crunch.

On the flip side, the sugar syrup will last for weeks in a jar in the fridge and goes really well with other Middle Eastern desserts.

What can I use extra sugar syrup with?

To drizzle on kunafa, a delicious Middle Eastern cheese and pastry dessert. I have a classic kunafa recipe here, and a mini kunafa recipe here.

This is the same type of sugar syrup you’d use to make Aish el Saraya (a sweetened breadcrumb and cream dessert). You’d also drizzle it on Znood El Sit, a fried pastry stuffed with cream, and could use it to sweeten Tamriyeh (semolina pudding stuffed fritters).

I encourage you to try all the above Middle Eastern desserts, they are absolutely delicious and each in its own way!

Watch me make these:

If you liked this recipe, you might like:

Kunafa

Mini Kunafa

Rosewater Syrup

Salted Caramel Orange Blossom Sauce

Aish El Saraya

Znoud El Sit

Tamriyeh