The Dukes of Desserts

Having a sweet tooth will most of the time leave you in a bit of a conundrum. It can bring happiness to our mouths and hearts… Or it can completely ruin our diet. Lucky for you though, we don’t really care about our diet so we decided to venture to Duke’s Patisserie and splurge. Because there is nothing like some perfectly crafted dessert to help bring joy back into your life after a long day of fasting. 

We headed to the extravagant New Cairo branch and checked out what goodies awaited our demise and oh, was it a pleasurable massacre. Upon walking in we were not only smacked in the face by a plethora of delicious smelling baked aromas, but we were made to feel welcome as the staff began to show us their delights. We aren’t sure if it was just us but the sleek interior made the food look better and us hungrier. We were magnetically pulled to the display loaded with goodies and believe us when we say it was really, REALLY hard to choose.

Now, if you know Dukes, you know about their Dirt Cake. If you don’t know Dukes, you’ve probably heard of their Dirt Cake. To the naïve, no, it’s not a cake made of dirt but instead is a well-crafted treat that really pops out at you to say the least. It literally looks like a flower in a ceramic pot so be careful you don’t go around eating the flowers at the place; make sure you know it’s actually the Dirt Cake. With several different flavours like chocolate, apple, strawberry, coffee, and hazelnut you should find a dirt cake for just about anyone. We took one bite of the hazelnut flavoured one and then made it disappear so fast we almost dug into the real flower pot right next to it.

Next on our hitlist was the vibrant Charlotte Cake which is not only Instagrammble (and as you know, we love ourselves an Instagrammable dessert) but a damn good tasting treat too. You’ll actually find yourself having some fun consuming this as the doughy border around the dessert seems to bend around with every single spoonful. Needless to say, the looks definitely lived up to expectations as the cheesecake and strawberry jam combination was something to die for.

Although we were stuffed to the brim and our dessert itch was scratched, we found it kind of just casually returned the second we saw a mouthwatering, heavenly-looking chocolate creation. And who are we to pass up a chocolate creation? Upon asking the waiter what it was, he proudly told us it was called the Magic Chocolate Heaven cake. Coincidence? We think not.

Even walking past someone else’s seafood risotto tempted us to distract them so we could eat it. Oh, you didn’t know they had items other than baked goods? Well, aren’t you glad we told you? This is basically your one stop shop for everything from red velvet cake to Chicken Moneybag Crepe (which does not contain any actual money but is more akin to a chicken dumpling - it looks like a little bag of money. Get it? Get it?).

Like any good patisserie we had to take several trays of desserts from them in order to politely bring them with us to the onslaught of family and friend Iftars that we've been invited to this year. But then we ate them on the way home. Our bad.

If you’ve been to Dukes, go again - they have a revamped menu especially for Ramadan with all your favourite Konafa, baklava, and ka7k creations. With branches across east Cairo and a newly opened one in Dokki, now pretty much wherever you live in this city, you can now get your hands on their delicious desserts. Can we hear a hallelujah? 

Oh and if you want to just stare at pictures of all the creations don’t hesitate to visit their Facebook page here or check out their Instagram account @dukesegypt. But we must warn you, it’s basically torture to just stare at desserts.