CANT GET ENOUGH OF KNAFEH BIL JIBNE!

The key ingredient here is knafeh- you can find this in Middle Eastern food shops.


A mixture of the right cheeses explains the creamy inner magic of a knafeh bil jibne. You will need a mixture of akkawi cheese (here on the left, the texture is more goey) and haloumi cheese (on the right, with a firmer texture). These cheeses are salty, so you will need to leave them in a bowl of cold water for 48hours in the fridge to remove saltiness. Make sure to change the water at least twice during the 48hours.


Place your knafeh in a mixer

And shred it. Some shops might sell knafeh that is already shredded- so in that case skip this step.


In a bowl, mix all the shredded knafeh with a generous (and I mean it literally here- you need to be extremely generous) amount of melted butter- or even better, if you have ghee then use that instead. Make sure the knafeh is well coated with the melted butter or ghee and take half of the quantity and spread a layer of it on a baking tray.

Then top on diced akkawi and haloumi cheese

And cover that with the remaining half of the knafeh

Bake at 190C for 20 minutes, then check every 5 minutes. It will be ready when it has a nice golden colour. Once out of the oven, immediately pour over some orange-blossom scented (or rose water if you prefer) syrup

It needs to be well soaked in the syrup, so dont be shy!

If you want, you can sprinkle some pistachio on top


Slice it up and enjoy immediately- eating it cold is a big no-no!


Hopefully the photos make it easy to understand, so I'm not including a recipe, but here is an overview of the ingredients you will need:

Raw knafeh
Akkawi cheese, diced
Haloumi cheese, diced
Butter or ghee, melted
Pistachios- optional

The important thing here is to coat the shredded knafeh very generously with the melted butter or ghee- otherwise the end result is too dry.
I understand these ingredients may not be easily available everywhere, so a cheat method if you cant find akkawi and haloumi cheese is to use mozzarella instead. In that case, you don't need to soak in water as mozzarella tends to be less salty.
For the syrup place equal amounts of sugar and water and boil for a good 10 mins (until it?s texture is rather thick). At the end, add some orange blossom or rose water to the syrup.

FYI- the name of this dessert can vary from country to country in the Middle East. Although these countries all speak Arabic, traditional dishes may still be named differently!