05/15/2026
Ka’ak Asfar, a favorite Easter brunch bread.
If you grew up in a Palestinian or Levantine household, you know exactly what this smell is. That warm, spiced, slightly sweet aroma hitting you before you even get to the kitchen? It means Easter is here.
Ka’ak Asfar literally means “yellow kaak,” and that gorgeous golden color isn’t food dye, it’s turmeric doing its thing, with olive oil and a whole lineup of spices that your teta probably had memorized by heart: mahlab, nigella seeds, sesame, anise, nutmeg, cloves… the gang’s all here.
We’re talking about a bread that’s been passed down not from a cookbook, but from hands to hands. Someone watched their mom make it, who watched her mom make it, and so on. That’s the kind of recipe that doesn’t need to be written down. Until now, I guess! 😄
Eat it the way it was meant to be eaten, with hard boiled eggs, labneh, olives, cheese, or a little marmalade if you’re feeling fancy.
And for the olive oil I don’t cut corners here. I use Saifan, a cold-pressed, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Sourani olive trees grown in the Koura region of north Lebanon. If the bread is the tradition, the olive oil is the soul.
