What makes a dessert halal? Gelatine, alcohol, rennet and E numbers explained

A dessert is halal when everything in it is permitted, and most of what goes into one is never in question. Flour, sugar, eggs, milk, cream, butter, fruit, nuts and cocoa raise no doubt in any of the sources cited here. Pork and pig fat such as lard are the plain case. What is left to check is short: gelatine, alcohol, animal rennet in the cheese, and a few additives made from insects or fats. This guide shows how each appears on a UK label and, where scholars disagree, names who holds which view, so you can follow the one your family already follows.

The ingredient areas at a glance

Lard is pig fat, so it rules a dessert out whichever view you follow. Each of the other four rows has a point where views differ.

1. Gelatine: find out which animal it came from

Gelatine is a protein extracted from animal collagen. It sets jelly, panna cotta and no-bake cheesecake. UK hygiene law allows it to be made from cattle hides, pig skins, bones, poultry skin, and fish skin and bones, among other materials (Regulation 853/2004, Annex III).

On a label, gelatine appears as a word. Older lists online call it E441, or warn about E542 (edible bone phosphate), but neither code is on the Food Standards Agency's current list of approved additives and E numbers, and gelatine is not on it at all. Look for the word and the animal beside it: "beef gelatine", "pork gelatine" or "fish gelatine". If it says only "gelatine", the maker has to answer the question.

The sources here all accept gelatine from a halal animal slaughtered in the prescribed way. They differ over gelatine from pigs, or from permitted animals not slaughtered Islamically:

• The source decides. A Hanafi answer from Muftionline treats gelatine from both as impermissible, and so does an IslamQA.info answer from 2014.
• Transformation decides. Processing turns collagen into a new substance (istihalah), so the source no longer settles it. The 2014 answer records that the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences adopted this view, and an earlier IslamQA.info answer, from 2011, applies it and finds nothing wrong with sweets that contain animal gelatine. Answers on that site differ by date, so check the date of any you rely on.

Fish gelatine avoids the slaughter question: a Hanafi answer on Muftisays calls it "suitable as a substitute". Plant setting agents avoid it too. Agar (E406) and carrageenan (E407) come from seaweed and pectins (E440) from fruit.

2. Alcohol: the named kind and the hidden kind

Alcohol added for flavour is usually named. Many tiramisu recipes put Marsala, rum or a coffee liqueur in the coffee or the cream. Trifle often has sherry, and Christmas pudding and fruit cake often have brandy.

The hidden kind sits in extracts and flavourings. UK law lets a flavouring appear simply as "flavouring" (Regulation 1169/2011, Annex VII), and a flavouring may contain other food ingredients added for technical reasons (Regulation 1334/2008, Article 3). Carriers used only in the amounts strictly necessary, and processing aids, do not have to appear in the ingredients list, although allergens still must (Article 20). So the word "flavouring" does not tell you what the flavour was carried in. Vanilla extract is the common case: in the United States it must by law contain at least 35% alcohol by volume (21 CFR 169.175). That is a US standard, but it shows what an extract usually is.

Baking does not remove all of it. In tests behind the USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors, a dish baked for 25 minutes with the alcohol not stirred in kept 45% of it, and one with the alcohol stirred in, baked or simmered for an hour, kept 25%.

On traces of alcohol, four published positions show the range:

• Darul Ifta Birmingham, a Hanafi body, holds khamr (alcohol from grapes or dates), and drinking beer or spirits, forbidden in any amount. It permits other alcohol in foods where it cannot intoxicate, and sees no harm in vanilla extract. The answer covers ingredients such as vanilla extract; it does not address rum or liqueur added on purpose.
• IslamQA.info, citing fatwas of the Saudi Permanent Committee, says alcohol must never be added to food deliberately. Food that already contains it may be eaten if no trace can be detected and a large amount would not intoxicate.
• Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah in Egypt permits food or drink mixed with an amount of alcohol so small that it would not intoxicate even in large quantities (istihlak), and attributes the transformation view (istihalah) to most Hanafi and Maliki scholars.
• Askimam, the fatwa service founded by Mufti Ebrahim Desai, says food containing vanilla extract is not permissible even after it has been baked or cooked.

All four treat a dessert that could intoxicate as forbidden. They part company over traces. If your household follows the strictest view, treat vanilla extract and an unexplained "flavouring" as questions for the maker.

3. Animal rennet: the cheese question

Rennet sets milk into curd for cheese. Animal rennet comes from the stomach lining of ruminants, usually cows, and may be labelled "rennet", "pepsin" or "animal enzymes". Microbial rennet is made by fermentation, for example of the fungus Rhizomucor miehei (Vegetarian Society). Pepsin can also come from pigs, though porcine pepsin is rarely used (PLoS One, 2015), so "pepsin" or "animal enzymes" without the animal named leaves the question open.

Cheese turns up in cheesecake, cheese-filled kunafa and some pastries. Mascarpone, the cheese in tiramisu, is usually set with an acid, citric acid in most cases (GEA), so the rennet question rarely arises for it.

None of the sources cited here permits rennet from a pig, and none objects to microbial rennet. The open question is rennet from a permitted animal that was not slaughtered Islamically:

• IslamQA.info sets out the split: most Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali scholars hold such rennet impure, while Abu Hanifah and one report from Imam Ahmad hold it pure, the view Ibn Taymiyyah favoured.
• Hanafi answers differ among themselves. SeekersGuidance says cheese made with rennet from any source other than a pig is halal, though better avoided where the source is unknown. Muftionline concludes that rennet as it is made today, from animals not slaughtered Islamically, is impermissible according to all the Hanafi imams.
• IMAM, the North American liaison office of Ayatollah Sistani, treats rennet as unlawful when it is known to come from an animal not slaughtered Islamically. Where the source is not known, the same answer says there is no problem in consuming it.

4. Additives: the few E numbers worth knowing

UK law requires an additive to be listed by its job, then its name or E number, for example "colour: carmine" or "emulsifier: E471" (Annex VII). Four codes carry most of the halal questions on dessert labels.

On carmine, a Hanafi answer from the Darul Iftaa of Jaamia Madinatul Uloom in Trinidad holds products containing it impermissible, citing the majority view that insects are not to be eaten. The 2011 IslamQA.info answer cited above finds nothing wrong with sweets containing carmine, provided they are not harmful, because it has been transformed.

For the emulsifiers, a Darul Ifta Birmingham answer on E472 says it "can be from a vegetarian, synthetic or animal source" and advises looking for a "suitable for vegetarians" mark. The glaze E904 (shellac) raises questions this guide does not cover, so ask the maker if you see it.

How to read a dessert label in six steps

1. Look for a halal mark. Marks are issued by different bodies working to their own standards, so a mark is only as good as your trust in the body behind it. A mark you trust settles most of what follows, though a household strict on traces of alcohol or on carmine may still want steps 3 and 6.
2. Find gelatine, and the animal named beside it.
3. Find alcohol: named drinks, the word alcohol, vanilla extract and "flavouring". Ingredients are listed by weight, most first (GOV.UK), so rum near the top makes up a large share of the dessert.
4. Find cheese, rennet or pepsin, and whether the coagulant is animal, microbial or plant.
5. Find lard (pig fat) or suet, which can be beef or vegetable. Beef suet raises the same slaughter question as beef gelatine.
6. Check four codes: E120, E471, the E472 group and E422. The Vegetarian Society's trademark rules out the animal-derived versions of these; a maker's own vegetarian wording is the maker's claim.

Anything still open after these six is a question for the manufacturer.

Is tiramisu halal? And other desserts people ask about

Tiramisu can be halal. It is sponge fingers dipped in coffee and layered with a cream of mascarpone, egg and sugar. The question is almost always alcohol, because many recipes add Marsala, rum or a coffee liqueur, and since tiramisu is not cooked, that alcohol stays in. The mascarpone is rarely the issue, because it is usually acid-set. A tiramisu made without alcohol, from ingredients that pass the checks above, raises no ingredient question.

The desi sweets are mostly milk, sugar, ghee, rice, carrot and nuts, so the question there is the decoration. Silver leaf (vark) was traditionally made by hammering silver between layers of cow or buffalo intestine, according to an Indian official quoted when India's food regulator banned animal material in silver leaf in 2016 (Vegetarian Resource Group). That is an Indian rule, so for vark on a sweet bought in the UK, ask the maker how it was made.

What to ask a cafe or dessert shop

A slice of cake bought over a counter usually comes with no ingredients list. For food sold loose, UK law makes allergen information mandatory, but not the full list of ingredients (Regulation 1169/2011, Article 44). Since October 2021, food prepacked for direct sale, such as a cake wrapped on site for a grab-and-go fridge, has needed a full ingredients list (Food Standards Agency). So read the label if it comes boxed, and ask if it does not:

• Is the whole menu halal, or only some dishes?
• Is alcohol used anywhere, including in sponges, sauces or flavourings?
• Is there gelatine in the set desserts, and from which animal?
• Is there cheese in the cheesecake or kunafa, and was it made with animal rennet?
• Are toppings and sauces bought in, and has someone checked their labels?
• Is alcohol served on the premises?

Allergies are a separate conversation: tell the staff what you need to avoid, whatever the halal answer.

Asking these questions at Cha Cha Chai

At Cha Cha Chai the whole menu is halal and no alcohol is served, and there is a halal roundel on the door. The halal page covers both. For sourcing on a particular dessert, including whether any cheese goes into the cheesecake or the kunafa items and what it is set with, ask at the counter or call 01923 940269. Current hours are on the contact page.

The counter carries milkcakes from £6.95, gelato from £2.50 a scoop, and the Sebastian Cheesecake, Strawberry Kunafa Cup and desi classics listed on the dessert bar page and the menu.