Maltese Desserts and Sweets: Pastries, Biscuits and Celebration Cakes

Choose a Maltese sweet by filling, technique, and occasion: almond biscuits, date pastries, ricotta kannoli, bread pudding, and seasonal celebration cakes.

Maltese sweets range from a biscuit beside coffee to a pastry you fill at the last minute or a cake made for a particular celebration. This guide helps you choose by the kind of cooking involved, not just by how a finished sweet looks.

For a straightforward first bake, compare almond macaroons with almond and chocolate tart. If you want a filled pastry, decide between dates, treacle, and ricotta before choosing a dough. For a project to decorate, start with Figolli; for an assembled centrepiece, read the full Prinjolata method before shopping.

Maltese Biscuits: Choose by Texture and Season

“Maltese biscuits” covers several shapes and textures rather than one master dough. Use this comparison to choose the result you want:

RecipeTexture and flavourPlanning note
Biskuttini tal-LewżCrisp outside, chewy almond centreA compact almond bake suited to coffee or a sweets table.
Qagħaq tal-ĠulġlienCrisp sesame rings with aniseedA simpler ring without a separate filling.
KwareżimalChewy almond, citrus, spice, and honeyAssociated with Lent; check the recipe’s cultural note and ingredients.
Qagħaq tal-GħaselPastry ring around a dark treacle fillingMore involved than a plain biscuit because the filling must be cooked and cooled.

Figolli are often discussed alongside Maltese biscuits, but their filled, decorated construction makes them a larger Easter project. Use the Easter food guide when that is the bake you have in mind.

Match the sweet to the occasion

Some sweets have a specific place in the calendar. Prinjolata belongs to Carnival, Kwareżimal to Lent, and Figolli to Easter. They are not interchangeable names for a generic festive dessert.

Use our Easter food guide for spring baking, or the Christmas food guide for a winter gathering. You can still bake a favourite outside its associated season; the cultural notes in each recipe explain the occasion without imposing a menu on your household.

For November baking, explore All Saints, All Souls, and Halloween food. For small sweets and preparation in the weeks before Christmas, use the Advent collection.

Choose a manageable mix

For a small sweets table, choose contrasting textures: one biscuit, one filled pastry, and coffee may be enough. Three recipes that all need frying or last-minute filling compete for attention. Read the active work, cooling, and chilling requirements as well as the stated cooking time.

Check ingredients for your guests rather than relying on a dish name. Several of these sweets contain almonds, eggs, dairy, or wheat; some offer alcohol or honey. ‘Honey rings’ on this site have a treacle filling, while the savoury ricotta pie belongs in baking and pastry, not on this dessert list. For unfamiliar labels, consult the ingredient guide.

Biscuits and rings for coffee

Almond macaroons have a chewy centre; sesame rings offer a simpler biscuit with aniseed. Kwareżimal combines almonds with citrus and spice. Qagħaq tal-Għasel is a filled pastry rather than a plain biscuit: allow time to cook and cool its treacle filling before shaping the rings.

Festa confectionery: brittle and sesame halva

Choose hard almond-and-sesame Qubbajt for a crisp snap or almond-studded Ħelwa tat-Tork for a crumbly sesame sweet. Both use cooked sugar syrup and need a suitable thermometer; prepare the tin and utensils before heating.

Filled pastries to serve fresh

Imqaret encloses a date filling in fried pastry. Kannoli and Żeppoli use sweet ricotta but have different shells and shapes. These are good choices when you can finish close to serving; filling a crisp shell too early can soften it. Check the recipe before deciding what to prepare ahead.

Slices and centrepieces

Bread pudding makes use of stale bread, while marmurat tart combines a sweet pastry shell with an almond and chocolate filling. The Christmas log is assembled without baking. Prinjolata is a larger project involving several components, so it suits a day when preparation and chilling can be spread out.

Almond pastries to decorate

Figolli pairs two layers of pastry with almond filling and a decorated top. The shaping and icing are part of the work: a small number of simple shapes is a manageable first batch. Bake and cool fully before decorating, following the recipe's storage guidance.

San Martin bakes and an autumn fig sweet

Celebrate St Martin in autumn with a soft glazed aniseed bun or a slice of date, fig and nut cake. For an easy seasonal accompaniment, fill soft dried figs with walnut halves.

Maltese ice cream

Ġelat tan-Nanna combines evaporated milk, cinnamon, almonds and glacé cherries. Partly freeze and beat the base before its final overnight freeze; serve in small bowls or alongside Imqaret.

A chilled almond drink

Ruġġata is a spiced almond-flavoured cordial diluted with cold water. Make the syrup first and chill it, then add an optional splash of evaporated milk to individual glasses.

Carob syrup for a diluted drink

Ġulepp tal-Ħarrub extracts flavour from roasted carob pods before reduction with sugar. Allow an overnight soak and dilute the finished syrup with hot or cold water. Keep this home batch refrigerated.

A warm sweet to sip

Imbuljuta is a pourable chocolate-and-chestnut drink with pieces to eat with a spoon. It leaves the oven free, but its dried chestnuts need soaking overnight and gentle cooking before serving.

Christmas fruit bakes

Mince pies wrap a cooked apple-and-dried-fruit filling in buttery pastry. Christmas fruit cake combines soaked fruit, almonds, and citrus in a rich cake that bakes slowly. Choose individual pies for a platter or a cake for small slices beside coffee.

November bones and chocolate bites

Għadam tal-Mejtin pair sweet pastry with almond filling and white icing for November remembrance. Homemade baci have a biscuit-and-hazelnut centre under dark chocolate, and set in the fridge. Compare a filled bake with a small oven-free sweet.

Explore all Maltese recipe collections or browse every recipe.