best birthday surprise for boyfriend: try out these sweet pastries together

Fried little dough balls dusted in snowy sugar, like the Italian Struffoli, then there's the Milky phyllo dough pastry that does away with the typical sugar syrup, pastries have a lot of range like an actor who has honed their craft and reveling in the fame in their twilight years. Some have intriguing stories behind them and some exist just like a feel-good film that tends to become a guilty pleasure. So here are some sweet pastries polished and refined over time, that can be served as the best birthday surprise for boyfriend.

1. Struffoli

These are Neapolitan pastries consisting of small, deep-fried dough balls that are soaked in honey. It's traditional to prepare struffoli at Christmastime, so the balls are often piled high on a plate fashioned into the shape of a wreath or a Christmas tree, frequently covered over with colorful candy sprinkles or pieces of candied fruit. The name is believed to have derived from the Greek word “strongulos”, meaning round-shaped. It is believed that struffoli is a harbinger of good luck, and the balls symbolise abundance and prosperity. For centuries, struffoli were made inside convents before the nuns began distributing them to noble families at Christmas as a gesture of gratitude for charitable donations.

2. Gogoși

These are kind of a Romanian-style doughnut, with a dough flavoured with vanilla extract and either lemon or orange zest, then deep-fried until golden. Traditionally the gogoși dough is made without the use of yeast or butter, and rather than being piped into rounds, the dough is added to the bubbling oil in spoonfuls, which is why their shape is awry. Like most fried doughnuts or doughnut holes, these have a dusting of powdered sugar and sometimes might have fillings, jam or chocolate, piped into them. It’s a classic homemade treat, and gogoși can also be purchased from bakeries and supermarkets across Romania.

3. Kardemommeboller

Straight from Sweden, this complicated-sounding pastry is nothing but sweet cardamom buns with an intriguing appearance. They are knotted pastries with a hint of sweetness to them and made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, salt, yeast and cardamom seeds. Imagine the pops of cardamom seeds bursting in your mouth and releasing flavour, so if you like this spice, you'll love the Kardemommeboller. They are baked with generous butter used in them and you'll find them being made extensively for Santa Lucia Day and Christmas.

4. Plăcintă cu Mere

Plăcintă cu mere is a Romanian dessert that consists of a filling of grated apples mixed with cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter, that is spread between two layers of baked dough that have subtle flavours of orange zest and vanilla sugar. It's not exactly a pie, as it seems, it's more like a pastry-cake hybrid that can be consumed either warm or cold, with a customary dusting of powdered sugar. While usually eaten as a dessert, plăcintă cu mere is also a great breakfast pastry.

5. Sütlü nuriye

Sütlü nuriye is a lighter version of the classic baklava that has a hazelnut filling and instead of the sticky sugar syrup, it is drenched in a milk-based syrup. The dessert's origins are thought to be traced back to the 18th century where, 'sütlü' means 'milky' in Turkish, while Nuriye is the name of the female chef at the Ottoman palace’s harem, who might have created it. It was documented in the Turkish cookbook by Mehmet Kamil, or “Melceü’t-Tabbahin” (Cook’s Refuge) in 1844. It is said that back then, facing supply shortages, to make baklava, the chef innovated by using milk to create a lighter syrup with half the sugar and swapping the expensive pistachios for hazelnuts.

6. Persians

These pink frosting-topped pastries are Canadian and oval-shaped using either pink strawberry or raspberry icing. Persians use yeast, flour, butter, sugar, milk and a little cinnamon after which the dough is shaped into flatish discs and deep-fried. These cinnamon rolls originated from Bennett's Bakery in Canada's Thunder Bay and the name 'Persians' is thought to reference General John Blackjack Pershing, though the exact invention date remains unclear.

7. Skalický trdelník

These pastries are quite interesting for they are hollow and cylindrical and are made by winding dough around a roller called a “trdlo” which is coated in egg whites to which nuts like almonds and dry fruit like apricots stick. This unusual-shaped treat is produced near the Czech border in the northwest area of Slovakia by the Myjava River. Food historians say an 18th-century Hungarian general's Transylvanian cook first made trdelník in the border town of Skalica using this technique. Once baked, it's dusted with vanilla sugar and has a golden brown crust with a pale yellow inside that may or may not have a filling. Freshly baked trdelník can be found at street stalls, squares and fairs across Slovakia and the Czech Republic, sold wrapped in paper. It’s similar to the Hungarian kürtőskalács, but unlike Skalický trdelník it has no EU-protected status.