Eid is about a week away and that means my annual Eid dessert recipe series is BACK and I’m so excited!
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll probably already know that I am madly in love with knafeh. It’s my favourite Middle Eastern pastry that is soaked in a sweet sugar syrup and stuffed with stringy, gooey cheese *drools*. I put up a recipe for it last year and you all loved it, so this year I decided to give you another version of knafeh… individual knafeh cups!!! They’re the perfect individual portion size and they prevent any arguments over who got a bigger piece of knafeh. 😉 Be sure to give it a try and let me know how you get on!
I’ve added a lot of pictures to help guide you through the steps!
The most authentic knafeh is made with akawi cheese, however this is quite hard to find. It is also very salty so it needs to be soaked in water first for several hours. For this recipe I decided to use a quicker and simpler solution…. mozzarella! Mozzarella can get quite stiff when it cools, so in order to prevent that texture I have also prepared a sweet semolina mixture to keep the consistency of the filling creamy (but still stretchy don’t worry!).
TA DAAAAA…
AREN’T THEY CUTE?
I hope you like this recipe and don’t forget to send me a picture if you try it out!
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 stick cinnamon (optional)
- 1/2 tsp rose water (optional)
- 1/2 packet (250g) of knafeh dough (you can find this at many Middle Eastern grocery stores)
- 4 tbsps butter/ghee + extra to grease the muffin tray
- 1/2 tsp orange powder food colouring (optional, add more colouring as you wish)
- 3/4 cup (180ml) milk
- 1/2 cup (115ml) heavy whipping cream
- 1 tablespoon condensed milk (alternatively you can use 2 tbsp granulated sugar)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons (15g) semolina
- 1/2 teaspoon (1.5g) corn flour
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5g) water
- 1/2 packet (75g) mozzarella, grated
- Handful of Pistachios to decorate
- Preheat your oven to 200°C
- Begin my adding the ingredients for the syrup to a pan and heat over a medium flame for about 10-15mins. Set aside to cool and leave in the fridge until later.
- Melt the butter/ghee and add it to knafeh dough/pastry and mix with your hands so that the butter/ghee is spread evenly throughout the dough.
- Using a pastry brush, spread on some extra butter/ghee on to a muffin tray. Make sure to coat the sides of the holes of the muffin tray too! At this point you can add the orange food colouring to the ghee so that the top of the knafeh has an orange colour (optional). About 1/2tbsp of orange colouring for 2 tbsp of ghee works well.
- For the creamy semolina mixture, begin by heating the milk, cream, condensed milk and semolina in a small pot.
- Mix the corn flour and water separately until it dissolves and add this to the mixture in the pot. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens to a custard-like consistency (add more corn flour if needed). Set aside and leave to cool.
- While it's cooling, you can add the base layer of knafeh pastry into each muffin hole. Press it down firmly using a small object (e.g. a pestle) and be sure to bring the knafeh up to the sides.
- Now add about a tbsp of the semolina mixture in to each hole.
- Top with a tbsp of mozzarella in each hole.
- Cover each hole with more knafeh pastry. Press down so that it is sealed, but be gentle as you don't want the mixture to ooze out.
- Place in the oven for about 20-30 mins until the tops look golden brown.
- Once done, leave to cool and carefully flip over the muffin tray. The individual knafeh's should slide out.
- Pour the syrup over the knafeh and decorate with nuts of your choice – I used pistachios.
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