Dubai chocolate: what it is, why it’s so expensive and how to make it at home

What is Dubai chocolate

Dubai chocolate is a bar of milk or dark chocolate filled with pistachio cream, tahini (sesame paste) and toasted strands of kataifi pastry. Its flavour is reminiscent of kunafa — a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made from fine pastry strands, syrup and cheese. What remains of it here is mainly the crunch and the pistachio, wrapped in a chocolate shell.

The whole magic lies in the contrast: smooth chocolate, a creamy filling, and something inside that crunches with every bite.

Where it came from

The first Dubai chocolate was made by Fix Dessert Chocolatier in Dubai. The company was founded by British-Egyptian entrepreneur Sarah Hamouda, who, in her own words, was craving a chocolate that tasted of kunafa while she was pregnant. She came up with the bar in 2021; it was called Can’t Get Knafeh of It, and for a long time only a handful of customers in Dubai knew about it.

The turning point came in 2024, when a video of someone breaking it open on TikTok passed one hundred million views. The chocolate could only be bought in Dubai, so people started buying it up in bulk and reselling it for several times the original price. Within a few months, chocolatiers and big brands all over the world had started making it.

Why is Dubai chocolate so expensive

Three things drive the price:

• Pistachios. They are among the most expensive nuts of all — and the huge interest in Dubai chocolate pushed their price on world markets up by as much as 60% in 2025.
• Handwork. The kataifi has to be toasted and mixed into the filling, and every bar is filled individually. With genuine Dubai chocolate, a machine can’t do it.
• Weight. A bar is much heavier than an ordinary 100-gram chocolate bar — there’s often more filling in it than chocolate.

And, of course, demand. Whatever goes viral sells for more.

What genuine Dubai chocolate contains

The original recipe rests on four ingredients:

• chocolate shell — milk chocolate in the original, often decorated with a colourful pattern
• pistachio cream — with as high a share of pistachios as possible, not just a sweet green paste
• tahini — sesame paste, which gives the filling depth and balances the sweetness
• kataifi — very fine strands of pastry, toasted in butter until golden

If the wrapper lists mainly sugar, vegetable fat and flavouring instead of pistachios, and puffed rice instead of kataifi, it’s merely inspired by Dubai chocolate.

Recipe: Dubai chocolate at home

Makes 2 bars (silicone chocolate bar mould, approx. 15 × 7 cm)

For the shell

• 250 g milk or dark chocolate

For the filling

• 100 g kataifi (you’ll find it in Middle Eastern shops, often frozen)
• 30 g butter
• 150 g pistachio cream
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• a pinch of salt

1. 1

   Toast the kataifi

   Tear the strands into shorter pieces and toast them in a frying pan with melted butter, stirring constantly, until golden — it takes 5–8 minutes. Let them cool completely; only then will they be crunchy.

2. 2

   Melt the chocolate

   In a bain-marie or in the microwave — ideally, temper it, so that the chocolate shell will be glossy and snap when broken.

3. 3

   Make the shell

   Coat the mould with about two thirds of the chocolate, let the excess drip off and put the mould in the fridge for 10 minutes.

4. 4

   Mix the filling

   Stir the cooled kataifi together with the pistachio cream, tahini and a pinch of salt. The filling should be thick and crunchy.

5. 5

   Fill the mould

   Spread the filling into the set shell, leaving a few millimetres free at the edge.

6. 6

   Seal it

   Pour over the rest of the chocolate, level it with a spatula and leave it to set in the fridge for at least an hour.

7. 7

   Unmould and break it open

   This is the moment you’ve been doing it all for.

Tip: Buy pistachio cream that is as ‘pistachio’ as possible — ideally with an ingredients list that starts with pistachios, not sugar. It’s the most expensive ingredient, but the whole flavour depends on it.

What to use instead of kataifi

If you can’t get hold of kataifi, finely crushed butter wafers or cornflakes will give you the crunch. The flavour changes a little, but the principle — cream and crunch — stays the same. The puffed rice used in cheap imitations is very much a last resort.

Dark or milk?

The original is milk chocolate, and for most people that’s a safe bet. The pistachio filling is very sweet, though, so dark chocolate of around 70% gives a bolder, more balanced result. Feel free to try a combination: a dark shell and a little white chocolate in the filling.

Frequently asked questions