Ashta cream also known as Ishta , Qishta is a Middle Eastern clotted cream. This traditional cream is one of the key ingredient in many Middle Eastern desserts like Kunafa, Qatayef. Making this Ashta cream at home is easy and only needs 5 ingredients, no hours of simmering, no heavy equipments and less than 1 hour.
Take cornstarch in a bowl, add in 50 ml of the milk and mix well until combined. Set aside.
Take cream, milk, sugar in a sauce pan. Place this on medium high heat and bring it to a simmering stage. You shouldn’t boil it too much, it should come to a simmering stage alone.
At this point add in the cornstarch milk which we mixed earlier. Mix this well and cook for couple of minutes on low heat. The mixture will start to thicken. The consistency should be slightly thick, it should coat the back of the spoon.
Now take it off the heat and add in vanilla extract or orange blossom water and mix well. You can even use rose water as well.
Take a metal baking dish or any glass baking dish. I am using a 9x13 metal baking dish. Now pour the prepared cream onto the baking dish. It will be a thin layer only.
Now place this baking dish into the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. By this time, the cream would have baked low and slow and a thick layer of clotted cream would have formed.
Remove the baking tray from oven, let it cool down for at least 15 minutes. Now cover the pan with a plastic wrap and place into the fridge and let it set for 2 hours. You can leave overnight as well.
Next day, you can divide the cream into portions using a spatula. scrape the clotted cream from one end. Spoon into a serving dish. Serve with honey.