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EveryCow

Milk and cream

Kaymak

Thick clotted cream skimmed from slowly simmered milk, eaten at breakfast with honey on fresh bread.

Kaymak is a thick, firm cream made by heating milk gently for hours, then leaving it to cool so the fat rises and sets in a dense layer. The layer is lifted off in a sheet and rolled or cut. In Turkey it is eaten at breakfast with honey on bread, and on desserts such as kadayıf and baklava. In the Balkans it is often salted and aged.

What goes in

Whole milk: 67%67%Cream: 13%13%Slow heat and cooling: 20%20%3parts
  • Whole milk1067%, Cow or buffalo milk.
  • Cream213%, Sometimes added for a thicker layer.
  • Slow heat and cooling320%, Hours of gentle warmth, then a night's rest.

Rough parts by weight. The ring shows each input's share of the product.

Made step by step

Each drawing shows the operation for that step. Quantities and timings differ from house to house and herd to herd; this is one traditional way, in outline.

  1. Step 1: Boil Bring the milk slowly to the boil in a wide pan.
  2. Step 2: Cook Simmer it very gently for an hour or more, ladling it from height to raise bubbles.
  3. Step 3: Set Leave it to cool undisturbed overnight.
  4. Step 4: Shape Lift off the thick layer of cream and roll or cut it.
  5. Step 5: Serve Serve with honey and bread, or salt and layer it to ripen.
  6. Whole milk: 67%67%Cream: 13%13%Slow heat and cooling: 20%20%
    Finished Kaymak, by share.

Turkey and Iraq

Afyonkarahisar in western Turkey is famous for its kaymak, traditionally made from water buffalo milk, though cow milk is now more common. Kaymak and honey is a fixture of the Turkish breakfast table. In Iraq, geymar is eaten in the same way with date syrup or honey and fresh bread, often bought early in the morning.

Balkan kajmak

In Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro, kajmak is skimmed from boiled cow milk over several days, salted and layered in a wooden or clay vessel, where it ripens and sharpens. Young kajmak is mild; older kajmak is closer to a soft cheese. It is eaten with grilled meat, in pastries and with bread and peppers.

Where it is used

Breakfast with honeyOn kadayıf and baklavaWith grilled meat in the Balkans

The breeds behind it

BušaSmall native cattle of the western Balkans.Brown SwissCommon dairy breed in Turkey.Holstein FriesianNow the main dairy cow of Turkey and Serbia.

Also part of it, and being written: Anatolian Black (Native Turkish breed of the village herd.).

More on EveryCow

No breeds here yet. New pages are added every day.

Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text and drawings by the EveryCow desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The shares are a rough, illustrative ratio, not a recipe: every family and dairy makes it differently. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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