I guess you could say that Turkey is the land of the sweet tooth - possibly because there are so many sugary sweets that no-one has many teeth left!

Lokum (or Turkish Delight) is probably the most famous Turkish sweet. You can buy it at almost any bus stop or town, however Istanbul has finely honed the art of traveller’s sample boxes, which come securely packed for the ride home.

Along with rose flavour you can try cardamon, hazlenut and my favourite, pistachio (or even better, pistachio covered in cocunut). It even comes with a marshmallow centre.

Baklava is another popular dressert in Turkey, so we felt morally obliged to try some in Sutanahmet.

We also tasted the smooth vanilla slice with fresh banana,

and a fig slice.

I’m not that big on super sweet food (which probably disqualifies me from writing about food in Greece, Turkey or the Middle East), so my favourite dessert was sutlac, a creamy rice pudding baked until it caramelises on top, or else sprinkled with cinnamon.

Just before we left Australia, we heard a funny story about friends who travelled hours (and then more hours) by bus to a small town in Turkey which is renowned for its stretchy Turkish ice cream. Sadly, the town served only the regular stuff.

Cappadocia is not far from this town, and when we were there I was surprised to see the mythical Turkish ice cream being whipped and stretched elegantly out of an ornate brass tub. In memory of Tiff and Andrew’s ice cream odyssey, we tried one at the Goreme Otogar (unfortuantely the guy on duty wasn’t trained in stretching, so you can’t tell from the photo just how special this ice cream is, but at least he had a big spoon.

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