Mahlab: The Cherry-Kernel Spice of Eastern Mediterranean Baking

Mahlab (also spelled mahleb, mahaleb or mahlep) is what gives Greek Easter bread, Armenian chorak and Levantine ma’amoul their faintly bitter, almond-and-cherry perfume. It’s the soft kernel inside the stone of the mahaleb cherry, Prunus mahaleb, used ground. Its flavor probably comes mostly from coumarins, including coumarin itself, the compound that makes cassia cinnamon a concern in large daily amounts. And in 2015 it was the hidden cause of a run of false almond results in Canadian cumin.

At a glance

What it is

The mahaleb cherry is a small tree with a wide native range in Kew’s records, from Spain, France and Morocco through the Balkans, Türkiye, Lebanon, Syria and Iran to Central Asia and Pakistan. It’s been introduced in much of North America and northern Europe, Argentina and New South Wales. The spice is the seed inside the cherry stone. Mahaleb is also a common rootstock for grafting cherries, especially in the U.S.²

Names. The Arabic al-mahlab and Hebrew mahaleb are identical, which Katzer takes as a sign of a common origin. In Turkish the final consonant hardens to give mahlep.¹ English names include St. Lucie cherry, English cherry and rock cherry. A popular story ties “St. Lucie” to a monastery called Sainte-Lucie-de-Mont, but we couldn’t trace it.

Not to be confused with black mahlab. “Black mahlab” is the name for the seeds of Monechma ciliatum, a different plant.³

Flavor and aroma

Chew the kernel and it’s soft, bitter and aromatic, and after a while a subtle tonka-bean flavor comes through. Katzer finds the delicate fragrance swamped by a rather strong bitterness.¹ Ground, mahlab smells of marzipan, sour cherry and a little rose, and the bitterness comes across as bitter almond.

The compounds

Katzer reports coumarin, dihydrocoumarin and herniarin in the kernels and says coumarins are “in all probability” the main flavor compounds.¹ Coumarin itself is known for a pleasant, vanilla-like smell. A 2021 study of seeds from Egypt, Greece and Sudan identified 135 volatiles. Organic acids and aldehydes were the most abundant, aldehydes mattered most for telling origin and aroma apart, and coumarin and herniarin were in the mix.³

What roasting does. In the same study, roasting the seeds lowered benzaldehyde and cinnamaldehyde, raised lactones (from 6.8% to 24.2% of volatiles in one red Egyptian sample) and furan, and produced compounds found only in roasted seed.³ The authors didn’t test how those changes taste.

Fat. The kernels are rich in oil. Katzer gives a fixed oil content of 30%, mostly oleic and linoleic acids.¹ A 2012 Italian analysis reports 40.40% oil and 30.98% protein.² The two figures come from different samples, so we don’t average them.

Origin and history

Katzer says mahlab’s culinary use is limited to south-eastern Europe (Greece, Armenia) and western Asia (Türkiye, Lebanon, Syria).¹ We couldn’t trace claims that mahlab appears in recipes from ancient Sumer, and we didn’t find any other history of the spice that meets our sourcing standard.

How it is used

Mahlab goes almost entirely into sweet breads and confectionery, according to Katzer.¹ The sources name these uses:

• Greece and Cyprus. Tsoureki, the braided brioche-style Easter bread, plus yeast cakes and cookies. On Cyprus, an Easter cheese pie.
• Armenia. Chorak (also written choereg or chorek), a sweet bread similar to tsoureki.
• Lebanon and Syria. Ma’amoul, a crumbly shortbread pastry.
• Sudan. The kernels flavor bread.
• Italy. A liqueur, Mirinello di Torremaggiore, is made from the fruit.
• Generally. The 2021 seed study lists bagels, pastries, biscuits, cupcakes, candies and cookies, in small amounts, and names Greece, Armenia and Turkey.³

Use it sparingly and grind it just before you need it. It also works in milk puddings, custards and fruit tarts where an almond-cherry note fits. Can’t find it? See mahlab substitutes.

Buying and quality

Buy whole kernels. They should look plump and smell fragrant. Katzer says to always buy them whole, because the high fat content makes the powder spoil quickly.¹ We didn’t find a grade standard.

Storage

Keep whole kernels airtight and cool, and grind only what you need. Katzer reports that in his experience even whole kernels go rancid after one or two years.¹ We didn’t find a shelf-life figure from a regulator or standards body.

Safety

Coumarin

Mahlab contains coumarin. EFSA’s tolerable daily intake (TDI) is 0.1 mg of coumarin per kg of body weight.⁴ One 2012 analysis measured 0.87 mg of coumarin per gram of fresh kernel.² By our math, a 60 kg adult would hit their TDI of 6 mg a day with about 7 g of kernels at that coumarin content, every day. That’s far more than recipes use, but the figure comes from a single study’s samples, and we don’t know the coumarin content of other lots. The 2021 study notes that coumarins have been linked to liver damage and carcinogenic effects in experimental animals.³

Almond allergy tests

In March 2015 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued recall warnings for cumin and cumin-containing products after lab tests pointed to undeclared almond. It rescinded them on 30 April 2015. The false positives were confirmed to come from mahaleb cross-reacting with the almond allergen test kit, and the results were “highly likely” due to mahaleb contamination, not almond.⁵ In the UK, the Food Standards Agency looked into the same possible cross-reactivity in related recalls.⁶ For the full story, see cumin.

That episode is about test kits, not about whether mahlab triggers almond allergy. We didn’t find any regulator guidance on mahlab for people with almond or other tree-nut allergies. Katzer notes that the literature he reviewed doesn’t mention amygdalin-type cyanogenic compounds in the kernels.¹

Health claims

We’re not claiming mahlab or its coumarins prevent or treat tumors, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes or heart disease. We found no human evidence for any of these.

Substitutes and related pages

• Mahlab substitutes
• Cumin, for the 2015 almond-test episode
• Cassia cinnamon, the other common dietary source of coumarin