A convenient one-step synthesis of 2-deoxy-alpha-D-arabino-hexopyranosyl phosphate on a millimolar scale is described by reaction of potato phosphorylase with D-glucal at equimolar phosphate concentration. Furthermore, in the presence of catalytic amounts of phosphate, a 2-deoxy-maltooligosaccharide is obtained from maltotetraose and D-glucal. The water-insoluble oligosaccharide was isolated and characterized by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy. An average dp of 20 was thus determined.