Turkish pastries are difficult to fit into one neat English category. In Turkey, I would not normally think of börek, poğaça, boyoz, gözleme and baklava as identical types of food, even though English-language food guides may group all of them under the word “pastry.”
I prefer to explain them through the way I actually grew up eating them. Some came from our home kitchen, some from bakeries and pastry shops, and others are foods I strongly associate with İzmir and Seferihisar.
This also means I do not include every Turkish food made with dough. I would not personally describe lahmacun, open pide, mantı or bazlama as pastries. They belong to other parts of Turkish food culture and are better understood on their own terms.
What I Mean by Turkish Pastries
For this guide, I use “Turkish pastries” as a practical English umbrella term for the baked, fried, layered or filled dough foods that I actually associate with Turkish homes, bakeries and pastry shops.
The methods can be very different. Börek may use thin yufka sheets. Poğaça and açma usually rely on soft risen dough. Gözleme uses thin dough cooked on a hot surface, while pişi goes into hot oil. Boyoz has its own layered structure, and baklava belongs to the sweet end of the spectrum.
Börek: The Turkish Pastry I Know Best From Home
Börek is probably the pastry category I know best from my own family. My mother has made it regularly since I was a child, and she never limited herself to one filling.
She often made börek with lor cheese, spinach or a mixture of the two. She also used wild edible greens when they were available. One combination I remember especially well was spinach mixed with chicory. Potato and minced-meat versions appeared at our table too.
When my mother was younger, she rolled the dough herself with an oklava, the long thin rolling pin commonly used in Turkish kitchens. As she got older, she gradually moved to ready-made yufka. The filling and the way she seasoned it remained much more important to us than insisting that every sheet had to be homemade.
Su Böreği
My mother never made su böreği at home, so my experience with it comes from pastry shops. It is not actually one of my favorite böreks, but I have eaten enough of it to know the texture I expect.
For me, a good su böreği should have moist, soft and slightly elastic layers inside. The top should contrast with them by becoming lightly browned and a little crisp. I do not enjoy versions that become uniformly wet or heavy from top to bottom.
Sigara Böreği From My Mother’s Kitchen
Sigara böreği was much more common in our home. My mother did not buy frozen ready-filled rolls. She prepared the filling herself, even when she used commercially made yufka.
Her filling combines lor cheese, finely chopped parsley, black pepper and salt. She fries the rolls in olive oil. That detail feels completely normal to me because our home in Seferihisar rarely used another liquid cooking oil.
The result I know is crisp on the outside with a salty, fresh cheese-and-parsley filling inside. It is a good example of why “börek” describes a much wider family than one single recipe.
Poğaça and Açma: Similar Bakery Foods, Different Results
Poğaça
My mother also makes poğaça, usually with potato or cheese filling. The quality I look for first is the dough. A good poğaça should rise properly and feel soft, full and airy rather than dense.
I like the outside to develop a good brown color while the center stays soft and fluffy. In the versions I grew up with, the shape is usually rounded and plump, and sesame may appear on top.
Poğaça is also one of the first foods I associate with Turkish pastry-shop counters. Recipes change enormously from one bakery and household to another, so I find texture more useful than pretending there is one universal filling.
Açma
Açma occupies a similar breakfast and snack space, but I do not confuse it with poğaça. Its ring or twisted shape can visually bring simit to mind, while the dough stays soft rather than crisp.
The plain açma I grew up seeing normally came without a filling. Today bakeries also sell versions with cheese, olives and other fillings. Both açma and poğaça often have an egg wash on top, but the plain açma I know usually does not have the sesame coating associated with many poğaças.
Boyoz: The İzmir Pastry I Associate With Weekend Breakfast
Boyoz is different because it immediately makes me think of İzmir and Seferihisar rather than Turkish pastry culture in general.
For us, it is very much a breakfast food, especially at the weekend. In Seferihisar, we commonly buy it fresh from local bakeries and pastry shops. I prefer the plain version.
A hard-boiled egg makes a classic companion if you like eggs, and white cheese and Turkish tea fit naturally alongside it. You can find filled versions today, but the registered İzmir Boyozu itself is defined as a plain round pastry rather than a filled one.
TÜRKPATENT lists İzmir Boyozu as a registered geographical indication for İzmir and describes a lightly caramelized pastry that should break down easily in the mouth without becoming excessively hard or excessively soft. That description is close to what I look for in a good boyoz: it should puff well, feel crisp and flaky, and begin to fall apart when you bite into it.
You can see the official registration on the TÜRKPATENT İzmir Boyozu page.
Boyoz also belongs naturally in my guide to İzmir cuisine, because this is one of the foods I actually encounter as part of everyday local breakfast culture.
İzmir Gevreği: Similar to Simit, but Not Exactly the Same
İzmir gevreği and simit are closely related foods. The ingredients overlap heavily, but the production method gives İzmir gevreği its characteristic harder, crisper exterior.
The important detail is the hot molasses stage. The registered İzmir method dips the shaped dough into a boiling grape-molasses solution before baking. After that first cooking stage, the dough receives its sesame coating and goes into the oven for another bake.
TÜRKPATENT specifically identifies this hot-molasses technique as one of the distinguishing features of İzmir Gevreği. You can read the registration on the official İzmir Gevreği page.
In Turkish, gevrek also describes something crisp or crunchy, so the name suits the texture very well. I cover simit, gevrek and other bread-like foods in more detail in my Turkish bread guide; I include gevrek here because it is so closely connected with the same bakery breakfast culture as boyoz and açma.
Gözleme: The Version I Would Choose in Seferihisar
Gözleme was also made in our home, and it remains easy to find around Seferihisar and Sığacık, including versions cooked on a sac.
My favorite is simple: lor cheese with local greens. I would choose that filling over the others without hesitation. Fresh chopped tomato and Turkish tea make it even better for me.
The thin dough and hot cooking surface give gözleme a completely different character from a soft poğaça or layered börek. That is another reason I prefer not to talk about all Turkish pastries as though they share one dough or one technique.
Pişi: A Seferihisar Breakfast Memory
Pişi is one of the breakfast foods I strongly associate with Seferihisar. The version I grew up with uses fried dough and does not need an elaborate filling.
At breakfast, plain pişi would arrive piled high on a large plate in the middle of the table, and everyone would take pieces for themselves. The local version I know can carry plenty of sesame on the outside while remaining empty inside.
Filled versions also exist. When we make a cheese-filled pişi, finely chopped parsley belongs with the cheese rather than using cheese alone.
This is the kind of regional detail I prefer to preserve instead of saying that every Turkish family makes pişi in exactly the same way.
Kır Pidesi: Not the Same as Open Turkish Pide
In the Aegean context, I would include kır pidesi in a pastry discussion, but I would not confuse it with the open boat-shaped pide served as a main meal.
Unlike open pide, this version is closed, with the filling sealed inside the dough rather than spread across an exposed top. Lor cheese, greens or potato fillings are common examples I know.
It is generally simpler and more affordable than a full restaurant pide, which also makes it practical as a quick breakfast or snack. I especially associate it with students and people looking for an inexpensive bakery meal.
Paçanga Böreği: A Hot Meze Rather Than an Everyday Bakery Pastry
Paçanga böreği belongs to a different setting. I encounter it more as a hot meze in restaurants and meyhanes than as something I would buy for an ordinary breakfast.
The filling I know uses pastırma, kaşar cheese and pepper, with tomato as an optional addition. The earlier version of this article mentioned ham, but that does not match the paçanga böreği I know from Turkey.
I do not personally order it very often, although it appears on many meyhane menus and works well as a hot dish alongside other Turkish mezes.
What About Kete and Çörek?
Not every Turkish pastry appears equally often in every region.
I have eaten kete, but it is not something I commonly encounter in Seferihisar or the Aegean. I associate it much more with eastern parts of Turkey. For that reason, I would rather mention it briefly than pretend it has the same place in my daily food experience as börek or boyoz.
Çörek is also broader than one exact product. In everyday Turkish, the word can refer to both sweet and savory baked goods. Tahini çörek and poppy-seed çörek are two familiar examples, while pastry shops may also sell sweeter versions.
That is why I no longer describe çörek as one specific “cookie-like Turkish pastry.” The word covers a wider family of products.
Sweet Turkish Pastries and My Family’s Bayram Baklava
Baklava belongs to the sweet side of Turkish pastry culture, but my strongest connection to it does not come from a pastry shop.
Before my aunt passed away, Ramadan Bayramı and Kurban Bayramı often meant making a large tray of walnut baklava together. My aunt rolled the dough herself in a large galvanized metal tray, and my mother helped with the rest of the preparation.
The walnuts came from our own garden. We made the baklava at home, but we did not bake it in our household oven. We carried the finished tray to the neighboring bakery, where it baked in a wood-fired oven.
When guests came during the holiday, that was the baklava we served them.
This memory is why I find it difficult to reduce baklava to ingredients such as pastry, walnuts and syrup. For me, the process included the holiday, my aunt opening the dough, our own walnuts and the trip to the neighborhood bakery with the large tray.
What I Actually Expect to See in a Turkish Bakery or Pastry Shop
A bakery and a pastry shop do not always emphasize the same foods.
In a typical bakery, I expect bread varieties first, along with simit or gevrek and açma. Other pastries depend much more on the business.
In the pastry shops I know around İzmir and Seferihisar, I am much more likely to look for börek varieties, simit or gevrek, breakfast kumru and boyoz. That local experience should not be treated as a promise about every pastry shop in Turkey, but it gives visitors a much more realistic picture of what I actually see here.
Which Turkish Pastry Should You Try First?
If you are new to Turkish pastries, I would choose according to what you want rather than trying to work through an arbitrary top-20 list.
- For a classic savory pastry: start with börek.
- For a soft bakery breakfast: try poğaça or açma.
- For an İzmir breakfast: choose plain boyoz with tea, white cheese and an egg if you like one.
- For something crisp and sesame-coated: try İzmir gevreği.
- For a freshly cooked filled dough: I would choose lor-and-herb gözleme.
- For a Seferihisar-style shared breakfast: try pişi.
- For a sweet pastry: baklava remains the one with the strongest family memories for me.
The main thing I would remember is that “Turkish pastry” is not one dough, one filling or one cooking method. It covers very different foods, and the most interesting differences often come from the family, bakery and region behind them.
That is also why my own list leans toward foods I have actually eaten, watched my family prepare or encountered repeatedly around İzmir and Seferihisar. I would rather explain those honestly than stretch the article to twenty items simply to make the list longer.