I Made Dubai Chocolate, and Here's What I Learned
With so many pictures that Substack got annoyed at me.
A chocolate bar, two hands, a crack, a green filling. This was the visceral imagery I saw back in January when the NY Times Cooking department released an Instagram video about “Dubai Chocolate.” I hadn’t heard of the concept - I’ve reached the age where viral trends manage to breeze right by me - but very quickly I learned that Dubai Chocolate was all the rage on the Internets.
The long and the short of it is that a few years ago, Dubai-based Fix Dessert Chocolatier quietly invented a confection called the “Can’t Get Knafeh of it” bar, which features a blend of pistachio paste and kataifi (shredded phyllo dough) enrobed in chocolate. It lay in global anonymity for a few years until late 2023, when a TikToker posted a video about the bar and naturally, chaos ensued. Thousands of people crushed Fix with online orders, videos flooded social media, and melty chocolate fingers ensued. Somewhere along the way, the “Can’t Get Knafeh of it” bar became known simply as Dubai Chocolate, and from the looks of it, I think we have a new genre - up there with German chocolate cake and Caesar salad.
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Given the way I fell into a complete and utter trance upon viewing the NY Times’ Dubai Chocolate IG video, I can understand why this thing took off. Crispy chocolate, goopy green innards, sloppy consumption - it’s a sensory dream. We can *imagine* how it tastes and feels in our mouth, but we can’t be quite sure. We won’t truly know until we get our hands on the elusive bars; so naturally we’re all obsessed.
This is my long way of saying yes, I made the damn Dubai Chocolate.
Special Equipment
Let’s address the silicon elephant in the room: chocolate bar molds.
“How did you make these?” asked my friend Wolé when I served him some Dubai Chocolate a few days ago. He then erupted in laughter when I dangled the floppy mold for him to see. His ridicule was warranted. In life, do we really need a chocolate bar mold? I would say no, and I say this as a person who embraces single-use gadgets. But on the other hand, the mold cost about $8, and its roly-poly nature meant it could easily fold, squeeze, or tuck away in a random corner. Gadget approved!
So the answer is yes, this recipe does require special equipment, but it’s FUN equipment, and it’s cheap equipment, and it’s equipment that stows away quietly in your kitchen. If you’re interested in going down the Dubai Chocolate path, chances are you’re already in a frivolous state of mind; so just lean into and don’t fret about the molds.
Groceries
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of recipes out there for Dubai Chocolate, but I decided I would defer to the New York Times - it was their video that hooked me in the first place, after all.
First order of business was tracking down kataifi. Any vaguely Middle Eastern market should carry the ingredient (look for it in the frozen section next to phyllo). In Los Angeles, I easily nabbed it from Jon’s Supermarket. I also took home a tin of cod fish liver for no good reason, but that’s neither here nor there.
As for chocolate, the NY Times calls for 18 ounces, which is quite a bit. I wound up buying four packages of semisweet Baker’s chocolate since it was the best that Jon’s had to offer (come for the cod liver, but don’t stay for the chocolate). In retrospect, I wish I had gone elsewhere to grab higher quality chocolate such as Lindt, but that probably would have cost a small fortune. Also, I learned that Ghiradelli melting wafers are great and require no tempering; so, you know, lessons learned for next time.
Another grocery note: you will need more pistachios than you think. 2.75 cups of raw, shelled pistachios means two standard-sized bags of Wonderful Pistachios, not one. I learned this the hard way (cut to me shlepping back to the store at 8 PM for a singular bag of nuts). Between the chocolate and the pistachios, this experiment was proving to be rather pricey. But then again it’s called Dubai Chocolate, not Van Nuys Chocolate.
Making It
Making Dubai Chocolate is pretty easy. It just takes a little time since things have to set in the fridge. First order of business - annoyingly - is that if you bought frozen kataifi, you’ll need to let it thaw. This delayed my chocolate dreams a full day, but I’m sure there are some helpful hacks out there for last minute kataifi thawing. Or maybe you can ignore it altogether?
Next, it’s time to make pistachio cream. You could theoretically buy the stuff, but also you could theoretically buy Dubai Chocolate. No shortcuts!! It’s also an aggressively easy process; so go for it. Throw your pistachios, half a cup of sugar, half a cup of olive oil (!), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt into a food processor and blend for about 6 minutes. Recipe author Caroline Schiff warns “The pistachio mixture will progress from chopped nuts to a thick nut paste, then finally transform into a silky, slightly thin nut butter consistency; this takes about 6 minutes.” Since my food processor is a terrorist, it took about 90 seconds to get to the final stage, but I still went the full 6 minutes because I’m very obedient.
When ready, add a mere 1 tablespoon of tahini and whir to incorporate. A little tahini goes a long way; so don’t overdo it.
Now it’s time to toast the kataifi. Before doing anything, make sure to roughly chop your kataifi rather than keeping it in long, stringy tangles (the dough resembles angel hair pasta, for those seeking a visual reference). Next, we melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a skillet, add the kataifi, and then swirl it around nonstop for fifteen minutes. This was probably the most annoying part of the whole process. It was like making a dry, strange risotto. I was tempted to raise the temp to speed up the browning, but I knew the shredded phyllo was delicate and most likely would burn easily. So I just stood there, moving the kataifi around and singing along to the soft rock music I had put on the stereo.
Once the kataifi is sufficiently golden brown, we remove it from the heat and let it cool down a bit for ten minutes. I used this time to chop up my chocolate and start the melting process. We are meant to do an informal tempering (as in, no thermometers are used; although, maybe they should have been in retrospect). Basically, we melt half the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, and then once liquified and shiny, we remove from the heat and add the remaining chocolate, small handfuls at a time until it’s all melted and incorporated.
There’s also an option to do this in the microwave, but I just hate futzing with it every 15 seconds. I know it’s faster and incredibly simple, but as the Brits say, I can’t be arsed!
As the chocolate slowly melted on the stovetop, I mixed the cooled-down kataifi into the pistachio cream. This is a great time to taste the filling because a) you deserve a snack, and b) see point A.
Assembling it
Now the fun part. And by fun, I mean stressful. To make the bars, we need to coat the molds with a layer of chocolate, chill them in the fridge, and then 30 minutes later, add the filling and top with more chocolate. Lastly, chill for an hour or more and then your Dubai Chocolate is ready for consumption.
It seems easy enough, but I can attest that there is room for error.
First place your molds on a quarter sheet pan. This will catch any chocolate dribbles but also make moving the molds into and out of the refrigerator a breeze. Don’t overlook this step.
Now, time to get to business. The recipe says place a quarter cup of chocolate in each mold. Don’t follow this step blindly. This amount only makes sense if you have a deep, 1-inch mold. My molds are more like .7 inches deep, and it makes a difference. I had way too much chocolate in the molds, and remember that every ounce of chocolate is an ounce less of delicious filling you get to have. Plus, the whole idea with these bars is that the pistachio goodness is just barely encased by a delicate, thin layer of chocolate. Going too thick with the chocolate is downright unsophisticated.
My advice: spoon a healthy but conservative amount of chocolate in the mold and then brush liberally and generously across the surface. Be sure to check for any areas you may have missed, and don’t forget to paint the walls. It’s easier to add more chocolate than it is to remove excess.
Put the molds in the fridge, and use this downtime to do all your dishes.
After the molds have spent about half an hour in the fridge, it’s time to add the filling. First, check your molds to see if you missed any areas. I found I had a few tiny bare spots, so I just dabbed them with chocolate. No need to let these touch-ups set. Just heap the filling over them.
Again, don’t worry too much about official measurements. Just eyeball it. I added a heaping spoonful of the pistachio mixture into each mold and smoothed it out with an offset spatula. Make sure no one is talking so you can enjoy the crackling sound of the kataifi spreading into the mold. I left the teeniest gap between the filling and the sides so that the next layer of chocolate could seep in and fortify the walls (wouldn’t want them to break during unmolding).
And now just slather that chocolate on top of the molds. I forgot to do something essential with my first batch: scraping off the excess. Instead I etched a grid through the chocolate to keep the bars separate - sort of like when it snows during a football game and the staff shovels away paths to demarcate the yard lines.
Anyhoo, this grid lines were cute but totally useless (the chocolate seeped back into the gaps in the fridge). The real key was to take the offset spatula and run it all the way across the mold in a firm and steady way. I did this with my second batch to great effect. It took a few passes, and some of the kataifi did wind up poking through, but this just created a lovely texture not unlike the bottom of a Nestle Crunch bar.
Side note: Just realized I can now make homemade Nestle Crunch bars!!
Nevertheless, my molds went in the fridge, and two hours later (I gave it bonus time, which was huge self-discipline on my part), the Dubai Chocolate was ready for its big moment. I was delighted that all but one bar unmolded easily. Each one popped right out with barely any resistance. It’s like they WANTED to be candy bars. This of course demanded a moment of reflection: wow, I had made candy bars. How cool.
My first batch - the one that I hadn’t scraped the excess chocolate off - was decidedly inelegant. On one side they were beautiful chocolate bars, on the other they were chunky messes. Too thick, too unhinged. This also skewed the ratio of chocolate to filling. We want a thin shell, but it was more like a thick armor.
My second batch, however, came out beautifully. A real testament to artful chocolate scraping.
At last, tasting it
It was after midnight by the time I could finally taste these bars. I was so excited. You don’t even know.
I was deeply, thoroughly satisfied with the sound of the first bite. Just like all the videos demonstrate, Dubai Chocolate is an ASMR playground. The initial snap of the chocolate shell followed by the crispy munchy sounds of the kataifi - it was all perfect. Like walking on dried leaves.. but in your mouth… and better tasting.
Since my mold was not 1” deep, my filling was a bit modest - that is to say, normal. It was not overflowing with every bite, like in so many of the videos. Instead, there was a polite, appropriate amount of pistachio cream in the center (which was more tan than green, it should be noted). I can’t lie - I was hoping to have the full, maximalist experience with the goo pouring out all over - but also, I’m a monster.
Texturally, Dubai Chocolate is an unmitigated hit, even when the chocolate ratios are off and the filling is more restrained than the videos (for the record, the second batch with the thin undersides were a significant improvement over the first).
Flavor-wise - great! This was like a very fancy peanut butter cup. I don’t mean to be reductive, but it was essentially chocolate and a nut butter. Tahini gave it an added dimension, and pistachios elevated the experience from a humble peanut flavor. But still, it wasn’t like the flavor was a wholly new and profoundly exciting departure from anything we’ve had before.
This is one of those projects where I had to evaluate the outcome versus the effort. It tasted great, and I’ve been eating my Dubai Chocolate ravenously all week. But I’m not *totally* sure it was worth the time, effort, and money. Again, there was nothing very hard about it all, and I will surely do it again, but I don’t know if it was as special as, say, making a cake or even cookies.
Now, one thing I need to note is that my opinion of the Dubai Chocolate has risen in the days since I made it. Initially, I was like - this is FINE. Plus, despite having chilled in the fridge for two hours, it melted all over my fingers, which was incredibly annoying.
But after an overnight chill, the bars became much more stable in my paws. They were no longer messy nuisances, which made me enjoy them significantly more. They also just tasted better after an overnight rest. I won’t attempt to imagine the science behind it, but they really came into their own the next day.
And so while I’m not sure if the juice is totally worth the squeeze, I do want to give it another go with better chocolate. I have more than enough filling left over for two more batches; so hey, let’s go for it.
Also, I suspect a neat hack would be to skip the mold and just slather the kataifi-pistachio cream on a high quality chocolate bar (again, Lindt). Why don’t we do that anyway? Chocolate charcuterie!
Nevertheless, I love my new chocolate bar molds, and I had way more fun with this silly project than I ever should have. Have you attempted Dubai Chocolate? How has it turned out for you? And what other fun things have you made in your molds?
I'm in a FB group for our local Costco and at least 25% of the posts are about pistachio cream ("it's back!" "oh no, now it's sold out again!") I once saw someone filling their ENTIRE car with pistachio cream, for making Dubai chocolate. But it's seeing yours that makes me know I have to try it!
Ben. Ben. Ben. After you took one for the team, I decided that I will not make this! I may buy it (but I’m not a chocolate person - I know, heresy) but I nearly got a headache reading about the process. Thank you so much for sharing the results, insights, hits and misses of this project, but pas pour moi.
This sounds more like a Traitors mission than an actual candy bar!!