With less than two weeks left till the end of Ramadan, you’ve still got time to eat your way through this list of the best konafa desserts – why? Because konafa is the highlight of our Ramadan dessert culture, and every year we obsessively find different ways to eat it: Cupcakes? Rolls? Trifle? Ice cream? When will this madness end?

Never, is the answer, and his Ramadan, it seems glass jars are all the rage, maybe giving us the much needed illusion that these smaller bites are lighter, and thus healthier options to the traditional konafa slices. While we may be kidding ourselves, here are our top recommendations.

La Poire’s Peanut Butter Konafa

Honestly, it wouldn’t be Ramadan without a new konafa invention from the folks at La Poire. This year, they’ve really outdone themselves with basbousa éclair, konafa jars and konafa-cherry-cream cheese bowls, but our vote goes to their peanut butter konafa bowl. Yes, it’s heavy and sugary and will do your beach-body-in-progress no favours as we approach 'Sahel Season', but the nutty smoothness of peanut butter makes such a nice combination with crunchy konafa and cream.

Price is 140LE a bowl. Call 19515 to order.
__________

Coppermelt’s Konafa Jars

With jars emerging as the latest in dessert-vessel innovations over the last year, konafa jars were bound to happen this Ramadan. Coppermelt's mango, Nutella, chocolate with raspberry, and amar el din konafa jars are filled – obviously – with more cream than any ventricle could possibly cope with in the 40 seconds or so it'll take you to completely annihilate one of these, but at least they’re only jars. Imagine what you’d do if they were giant bowls.

Price is 25LE per jar. Call 010 28000445 or 01028000446. Check out the Cairo360 review here.

Tortina’s Konafa Bites

Our award for the prettiest bite-sized desserts goes to Tortina’s Oriental Konafa Soiree selection of tantalizing, tiny konafa rolls filled with mango cream, chocolate, red velvet and caramel, among other luscious fillings. Each bite is basically a pint-sized sugar attack, and we love the crunchy-cream juxtaposition of textures. Yes, we just went all Master Chef on you.

Price is 190LE for a selection. Call 01203022406.

Nola’s Sweet Cups

Are you sick of the word konafa yet? No? Great. You can’t have Ramadan without Nola and its cupcakes, konafas, or cupcakes with konafa; but this year we tried something different and went for their lotus crunch, konafa banana Francesca and konafa with Nutella and Twix. You know how we started this article talking about healthier and lighter? Yeah, forget about that.
__________

The Batter Half’s Konafa Cones

Though the Konafa Madness came close to making this list (as a seriously messy but delicious variation on the traditional konafa dish), we love the konafa cones at the Batter Half, which come in red velvet (this Ramadan’s most popular flavour, it seems), cream, pistachio, orange blossom and chocolate. Pop one into your mouth and enjoy the lovely contrast of crunchy konafa with smooth cream filling. #MasterChef

Price is 28LE a piece. Call 02 27370036. Browse their menu here.
__________

By Samar El Shams