feta cheese and raspberry jam. Pandispanjë is a traditional base for several Albanian desserts and cakes based on flour, sugar, butter and eggs. A variety of fillings are used, such as jelly, chocolate, fruit and pastry cream. Ballokume is an Albanian cookie, which originated in Elbasan during the Middle Ages and prepared every year on Summer Day, a public holiday in the country. It has to be brewed in large copper pots, tightly whipped with a wooden spoon and baked in a wood oven. Fruit jam, also known as Reçel, is enjoyed all year in Albania and a major component of the Albanian cooking tradition. The fruit preserve is made by cooking the juice of the fruit or the fruit itself, which usually grow in Albania, with sugar. It is served to many dishes as a side dish. Zupa is a popular dessert and assembled by alternating layers of cookies or sponge cake with pastry cream. Another similar dessert is an Albanian custard dessert called krem karamele very similar to crème brûlée. This dessert is made with milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and flavored with orange or lemon zest and cinnamon. Various kinds of hallvë are prepared across the country with some of the most common types being flour halva. Although home-cooked semolina halva and shop-produced sesame halva are also consumed. It is a typical sweet in local religious fairs around Albania. Tambëloriz, also known as sultjash, is a popular sweet among the Albanian population across the world. It is a kind of rice pudding made from milk, rice, cinnamon and nuts, raisins can be added, too. Tollumba is a fried, crispy, and sweet dessert traditionally eaten in the Balkan Peninsula. Further, it is made of bits of fried dough, similar to doughnuts, steeped in much lemony syrup. The dough contains starch and semolina, which keeps it light and crispy. Akullore is the Albanian word for ice cream and it is enjoyed both summer and winter. Kadaif is a pastry made from long thin noodle threads filled with walnuts or pistachios and sweetened with syrup, it is sometimes served alongside baklava. Kabuni is a traditional cold-served Albanian dessert made of rice fried in butter, mutton broth, raisins, salt and caramelized sugar. It is then boiled before sugar, cinnamon, and ground cloves are added. Pastashu is made from choux pastry, filled with a cream, vanilla, coffee or chocolate-flavoured custard and