Pasteli

Sesame seed candy is a confection of sesame seeds and sugar or honey pressed into a bar or ball. It is popular from the Middle East through South Asia to East Asia. The texture may vary from chewy to crisp. It may also be called sesame candy/bar/crunch; sesame seed cake may refer to the confection or to a leavened cake or cookie incorporating sesame. Similar foods are documented in Ancient Greek cuisine: itrion (ἴτριον) was a thin biscuit/cake made with sesame seeds and honey, the Cretan koptoplakous (κοπτοπλακοῦς) or gastris (γάστρις) was a layer of ground nuts sandwiched between two layers of sesame crushed with honey. Herodotus also mentions "sweet cakes of sesame and honey", but with no detail. The Kopte sesamis (κοπτὴ σησαμίς), or simply κοπτὴ, was a cake made from pounded sesame, only the ingredients are known and not the recipe, but historians think that it may was similar to the modern Greek sesame seed sweet (pasteli) which is made from the same ingredients. In modern Greece and Cyprus, sesame seed candy is still baked and called pasteli (παστέλι). It is generally a flat, oblong bar made with honey and often including nuts. Though the modern name pasteli is of Italian origin. On the island of Rhodes, a similar candy exist and is called melekouni (μελεκούνι).

Source: Wikipedia