birthday surprise for best friend: Sweet Pastries You Need to Try together, From intricate to the painstakingly made ones

From soft and doughy balls with a nice crunchy crust, to the ones shaped into intricate spirals, braids and coils, there are n-number of pastries that are sweet and perfect as snacks or a light dessert. They also range on the sugar scale from ultra-light to dense which will have you go “shiver me timbers” at their sugar content. So, here are a handpicked few, with more on their lists, for there are hundreds that deserve one taste in your lifetime. Try them together as a birthday surprise for best friend.

1. Schneeballen

These messy pastry "snowballs" from Germany certainly live up to their name. Whispers of crisp, sugary pastry waft from the tangle of deep-fried dough strips, loosely woven into an orb and dusted with powdered sugar. But don't let the humble appearance fool you – underneath that snowy exterior lie decadent variations cloaked in chocolate glaze or rolled in nuts, coconut, cinnamon or marzipan. Once a rare indulgence, these Bavarian beauties now grace pastry cases year-round, though their roots remain firmly planted in the picturesque town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

2. Kadaif

In Bosnian homes and also commercially, there’s a buttery pastry made using shredded kadayif dough with a nut-based filling, whose aroma lingers during festive events. It’s a cousin of the baklava and is layered, not rolled and baked or fried after which it is doused in an aromatic citrusy syrup. These pastries might also be rolled into cylindrical shapes and the dough also uses cinnamon and cloves and the aroma of spices can be quite heady with this one. No wonder this Turkish-inspired treat is a beloved staple for marking Bosnian holidays and special occasions.

3. Eccles cake

Don't let the appearance fool you into thinking it has anything to do with flies, dead or alive. There are no flies in sight with Eccles cakes, just buttery puff pastry encasing a filling of raisins or currants, brown sugar, and cinnamon. This signature delicacy is from the English town of Eccles and was once so irresistible that Puritans tried to outlaw it in 1653, for promoting Paganism. Luckily that did not last more than a year and this delicious pastry with its honey-glazed sweetness is widely available today and can be relished today alongside a cup of tea or a bowl of porridge.

4. Kalitsounia

On the sunny island of Crete, springtime manifests itself in the buttery pastry that is the kalitsounia. These rustic hand-pies are made with unleavened dough with a filling of fresh and tangy mizithra cheese that is made more flavourful by adding cinnamon and lemon zest, that is for the sweet version. They can come in an array of shapes from rectangular pockets to simple half-moons. This pastry might be associated with Easter, but their compelling taste has made them available a year-round staple.

5. Banket

Also known as banketstaaf, it’s a traditional Dutch pastry made with puff pastry that is filled with almond paste. In some preparations, the banket pastry is might be brushed with fruit jam and garnished with either cherries or almonds on top. Banket is customarily prepared during the Christmas festivities, and it's recommended to eat this pastry with a sprinkling of powdered sugar on your sliced pastry and consuming it alongside a cup of coffee.

6. Znoud el sit

This traditional Middle Eastern pastry is frequently enjoyed on Iftar, the meals taken to break the fast, during the holy month of Ramadan. It is crafted from thin sheets of phyllo dough wrapped around a centre filled with ashta — a Levantine version of clotted cream. The pastry is usually rolled into small elongated and then they're deep-fried until crisp. The pastries are drenched in a thick sugar syrup often flavored with orange blossom and rose water. They taste the best when eaten fresh with a garnishing of ground pistachios. Znoud el sit, under different names, can be found across numerous countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, the name translating as ‘lady's upper arms’, because the rolls apparently look like them.

7. Mucenici

Literally meaning martyrs perhaps referring to the fried pastries ‘sacrificed’ into a dessert soup, this pastry is unique. Jokes aside, its name is derived from the unfortunate drowning of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, a group of Christian Roman soldiers, in a lake during the persecution of Diocletian, the Roman emperor. It is prepared on March 9, the feast day of the Holy Forty to commemorate them. The dough is shaped into the number “8” and boiled in water along with sugar, cinnamon, and chopped walnuts, with a recent addition of desiccated coconut. Number 8 because the shape is an infinity loop, which has some religious symbolism in the Christian faith, and is supposed to look like the crown given to the martyrs.