What Greek candy is made from sesame seeds and honey?

Pasteli is the Greek candy made from sesame seeds and honey. It is usually prepared by binding toasted sesame seeds with honey, then pressing the mixture into a flat, oblong bar that can be chewy or crisp.

Pasteli belongs to a very old family of sesame sweets. Ancient Greek foods such as itrion and the Cretan gastris combined sesame with honey, while Byzantine writers described a related confection called sesamous. These historical foods are not identical recipes, but they help explain Pasteli’s long culinary lineage.

Modern Pasteli is made in both Greece and Cyprus and may include nuts. Its name is thought to derive from the Italian word pastello. On Rhodes, a similar honey-and-sesame sweet is known as melekouni, while halva is a different confection with a softer, more crumbly texture.

The defining clue is the combination of sesame seeds and honey pressed into a bar. Loukoumi is a gelatinous, starch-based sweet, and kadaif is a shredded-pastry dessert, so neither matches the question’s ingredients or form.