It was a pregnancy craving for knafeh that got Sarah Hamouda dreaming in chocolate, imagining a bar that recalled the crunchy-creamy Middle Eastern dessert of her British Egyptian childhood.
“I told my husband the next day that I wanted to start a chocolate business,” she said from her home in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Recipe: Dubai Chocolate
She’d never made chocolate before. But, undeterred and halfway through her pregnancy, she began working from her living room, with the elements of knafeh (cream or akkawi cheese, shredded phyllo known as kataifi, nuts or date syrup, and orange blossom or rose water) in mind. Eventually, her “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” bar was born, a milk chocolate shell bursting with pistachio cream and kataifi and adorned with bright yellow and electric green splotches.
Mrs. Hamouda had no idea that it would take on a life of its own, earning the nickname “Dubai chocolate” among fans online and spurring countless imitations.
In fact, when the couple opened their online shop in 2022, FIX Dessert Chocolatier — FIX, they said, stands for Freaking Incredible eXperience — “we were selling about a bar a week,” said Yezen Alani, Mrs. Hamouda’s husband.
Not one style of bar. One single bar.
“There were so many days we wanted to give up,” Mrs. Hamouda said.
Then came the viral TikTok video.
After the couple reluctantly took a fan’s suggestion and sent some chocolate bars to local influencers, Maria Vehera posted an A.S.M.R.-style TikTok showing off its snappy shell and cascading pistachio cream, then taking a big, messy bite.
It led to a waterfall of orders, Mr. Alani said — at least 30,000, which is when the delivery app they were using crashed.
“It was like the scene in ‘The Bear’ where the tickets wouldn’t stop coming in,” he said.
Mrs. Hamouda said, “I remember throwing my phone into the street.”
Things are better now: The FIX team has grown to 50. The bar has gained a global following. Lindt, the Swiss chocolatier, even created a version for a limited release of 300 bars in December. (It sold out in a day.) And the British delivery app Deliveroo said that, last year, the Can’t Get Knafeh bar was the top item ordered worldwide.
While Mrs. Hamouda and Mr. Alani object to the numerous versions sold by big companies, they love it when small businesses and home cooks “do their own takes.”
Venessa Liang, an oncology pharmacist and chocolatier known as FoodiePharmBabe on social media, sold her “Taste of Dubai” bar, made with a dark chocolate shell, gold chocolate filling with pistachio cream, toasted turmeric kataifi and caramelized pistachios, for 100 Canadian dollars (about $70) per bar. They sold out in three to five minutes, she said.
For Ms. Liang, Dubai chocolate’s magic is in its crowd-pleasing base ingredients and their adaptability: She’s even been using them in homemade ice cream. “Those flavors just work,” she said.
The Can’t Get Knafeh bar may have a hold on the rest of the world, but Mrs. Hamouda says she’s already moving on. This week FIX is releasing a bar, made with caramelized pecans and cookies: It’s called “Catch Me If Pecan.”
“The name is a bit cheeky,” she said, adding “it’s like our way of saying to the rest of the chocolate world, ‘You have to catch up to us.’”
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