Think of Middle Eastern desserts, and trays of syrup-soaked kunafa, pistachio-covered baklava or freshly fried luqaimat probably come to mind. Yet the world of Middle Eastern desserts also includes stretchy ice cream, chilled milk puddings and delicate frozen noodles scented with rose water.

The cold desserts Middle East food cultures have produced are remarkably diverse. Some are frozen, others simply served straight from the refrigerator, and their traditions stretch across the Levant, Egypt, Iran and neighbouring regions. What connects them isn't one shared recipe or origin, but a very understandable pleasure: cold, fragrant and creamy desserts are particularly appealing when the temperature outside becomes difficult to ignore.

The Levant has one of the region's most distinctive frozen treats: booza.

Particularly associated with Syria and Damascus, traditional booza is made with ingredients including mastic and sahlab, which contribute to its characteristic elasticity. Instead of simply being churned like conventional ice cream, the mixture is traditionally pounded and stretched as it freezes, creating a dense, creamy texture quite unlike ordinary gelato.

Pistachios are often pressed generously around the outside, while floral flavours such as rose water can complement the richness.

Booza also demonstrates why talking about Middle Eastern ice cream as a single category is difficult. Turkish dondurma is similarly known for its chewy, elastic consistency and traditional use of salep and mastic, while Iranian ice-cream traditions developed their own characteristic flavours and techniques.

These Middle Eastern frozen desserts overlap across culinary histories and geographical borders, but they shouldn't be treated as interchangeable. Each belongs to a particular food culture with its own traditions and variations.

Few famous desserts from the Middle East look quite like Iranian faloodeh.

Rather than a creamy scoop, faloodeh consists of extremely thin starch noodles suspended in a semi-frozen syrup traditionally scented with rose water. It is commonly served with lime juice, while sour cherry syrup is another popular accompaniment.

The contrast is what makes it memorable: icy but chewy, floral but sharp.

Faloodeh is particularly associated with Shiraz, although versions are eaten elsewhere in Iran. It is also commonly enjoyed alongside bastani sonnati, traditional Persian ice cream flavoured with ingredients such as saffron, rose water and pistachios.

Together, they show how varied Middle Eastern frozen desserts can be. One stretches, another melts into creamy saffron and pistachio, while another combines frozen syrup with fine noodles.

Not every summer dessert needs ice.

Mahalabia — also written muhallabia, mahalabiya and in several other transliterations — is a milk pudding found in different forms across the Middle East. Typically thickened with starch and served cold, it can be flavoured with rose or orange blossom water and finished with pistachios or other nuts.

Rice pudding occupies similar territory. Known by names including roz bi haleeb and roz bil laban, depending on the country and dialect, versions are eaten across the Arab world and can be served chilled with nuts or aromatic flavourings.

Then there is Layali Lubnan, literally "Lebanese nights". This Lebanese dessert usually combines a semolina-based pudding with cream or ashta, fragrant syrup and pistachios before being thoroughly chilled.

These traditional chilled Arab desserts may be less theatrical than stretchy booza, but refrigeration transforms their texture. Mahalabia becomes silky and delicate; semolina pudding sets into soft layers; rice pudding becomes dense and creamy.

For refreshing desserts for hot weather, temperature is only half the appeal. Texture matters just as much.

Trying to assign every recipe to a single country can quickly become contentious.

Kunafa is an obvious example. Nabulsi knafeh is strongly associated with the Palestinian city of Nablus, but different forms of kunafa are eaten across the Levant, Egypt and the wider Arab world. Milk puddings, syrup-soaked pastries and frozen sweets have similarly travelled, changed names and developed local variations over generations.

That overlap is central to understanding regional dessert traditions in the Middle East. Trade, migration, changing empires and family traditions moved recipes and ingredients across the region long before today's national borders existed.

The traditional desserts from Arab countries therefore tell two stories at once: one about distinctive local food cultures and another about centuries of culinary exchange.

It is also why the spelling of a dessert can change several times before the recipe itself changes very much.

What makes the best cold desserts in the Middle East particularly interesting is how differently they achieve the same basic pleasure.

Booza uses elasticity and richness. Faloodeh relies on ice, fragrance and acidity. Mahalabia is smooth and delicate, while Layali Lubnan combines cool creaminess with semolina and nuts.

This variety makes them natural summer desserts Middle East diners can choose according to appetite. A cold milk pudding after a substantial dinner creates a completely different experience from a pistachio-covered serving of booza, even though both arrive chilled.

It also explains why desserts enjoyed during summer in the Middle East don't form one neat category. Some are everyday homemade puddings. Others require specialist preparation. Some have centuries of regional tradition behind them, while others reinterpret familiar flavours in contemporary forms.

Traditional flavours are also finding their way into modern ice-cream freezers.

Contemporary ice-cream shops in the UAE and elsewhere in the region offer flavours inspired by ingredients and sweets familiar to local diners, from saffron and cardamom to Arabic coffee, baklava and Umm Ali.

These creations should be distinguished from traditional desserts from Arab countries themselves. Arabic-coffee ice cream isn't an ancient Emirati recipe simply because it uses a familiar flavour. It is a contemporary dessert borrowing from an established culinary reference.

That distinction is what makes the evolution interesting. The history of Middle Eastern desserts isn't frozen in time. Recipes travel, ingredients find new formats and younger businesses reinterpret flavours without necessarily replacing the originals.

The result is a dessert culture where traditional booza can exist alongside experimental gelato without either needing to pretend to be the other.

The best cold desserts in the Middle East reveal how broad the category of Middle Eastern desserts really is. There are stretchy ice creams and frozen noodles, homely milk puddings and elaborate layered sweets, alongside contemporary ice creams borrowing flavours from older recipes.

For anyone exploring the cold desserts Middle East has to offer, texture may be the biggest surprise. Booza stretches. Faloodeh is icy and delicately chewy. Mahalabia barely needs chewing at all. Layali Lubnan layers soft semolina with cool cream and crunchy pistachios.

Today's summer desserts Middle East cafés, restaurants and homes serve continue to reflect those different traditions. Some recipes have travelled across generations; others are modern experiments inspired by flavours people already know.

And that may be the most useful way to think about Middle Eastern desserts in summer. There was never one regional answer to the heat, and there certainly isn't one way to finish dinner. From Damascus to Shiraz and Beirut to Cairo, the pleasure of something cold comes in remarkably different forms.