Alright y’all, it’s time to channel your inner Auntie and make some Kunafah, with an -ah instead of an -eh because I’m Egyptian and THAT’S HOW I TALK.

For those of you who don’t know what Kunafah is, I describe it as baklava’s creamy, gets into VIP, bad and boujee lil cousin. The cousin that achieves all your dreams and the family fawns over, but they don’t even come to the functions that often. They moved. So what’s left in the little cake stand at your favorite ‘Mediterranean’ joint is… baklava. 

Instead of layers of flaky phyllo, kunafah has shredded phyllo that crisp up even more beautifully and instead of a crunchy pistachio center, here we have a cream center. Sounds better already right?

If you DO know what it is and grew up with it, you might be like me and find it hard to trust a recipe on the internet. Instead, you call mama/baba/tunt/titta 7 times for vague measurements that don’t mean anything with ingredients you never used because they’re only at the Arab store. Or maybe you went abroad, and you’re fancy now and you can’t find it anywhere! You can’t wait to go back! What are you gonna do, fam? I got you.

SN: they’re not only at the Arab store anymore! In the ingredients list, I’ve linked Amazon pages for the items that might be harder to find so at least you’ll know what it looks like. The farina is a finely milled wheat, which is used as a breakfast cream of wheat situation in some cultures too, so you can use a different/cheaper brand if you find it.

Recipe

For the kunafah:

1. Preheat your oven to 345. Why so specific? Why not 350? Do you mean 375? IDK I asked my mom THREE times and she insisted it was 345 and that’s the truth.
2. In a medium sized pot on medium heat, plop in a spoonful of clarified butter. Add farina to the butter and stir constantly, without raising the heat, for several minutes. You should start to smell a nutty fragrance and see the grains get a little toasty.
3. Add the can of puck, and incorporate it into your toasted farina. This takes a second and it is going to look too thick. Add ¼ of heavy cream, a little at a time, and feel free to add more until you have a loose custard-like mixture. Add vanilla off-heat and set aside.
4. I used a round cake pan for a thick layer of custard, and I’ve also used a 9 x 11 pan for a thinner kunafah. I suggest just adjusting to whatever baking pan you have instead of going out and buying one. Here’s the fun part – rip a couple handfuls of phyllo dough from the package and put them in the bottom of the pan. Drizzle with clarified or melted butter, and start ripping it up into shreds, incorporating the butter. It should end up looking like a shiny, pillow mass of strings. Form it into an even layer into the bottom of a pan. In a separate bowl, repeat the process.
5. Add the custard in an even layer. On top of the custard, add your second batch of buttered shredded phyllo. Pop into the oven at for 30-40 minutes. It’s done when the top is golden and crispy.

For the syrup:

1. Everything into the pot on medium low for 20 minutes, stirring every now and again. It should turn into a syrup slightly thicker than simple syrup.
2. Once out of the oven, while the kunafah is still warm, try to evenly distribute the syrup all over. It feels like a lot of sugar, but remember you haven’t added sugar to the kunafah at all yet! Let it soak up all the sugary goodness for as long as you can let it sit (15 minutes is good) and enjoy while it’s still a little warm!

A word on clarified butter:

Maybe the most village thing I do, at the beginning of each move, is… go to costco, buy four pounds of butter, clarify the whole batch and section it into jars which I then keep in the freezer.

The perks of clarified butter is that the water has been boiled out so it burns way less easily. A little bit goes a long way for frying pancakes, sauteing veggies, and browning meat (especially chicken hooooohmygod). People tend to use the same amount of clarified butter as they would regular butter when it’s really a more concentrated version, so be mindful.

If you’re interested in making it, simply take as much butter (salted or unsalted, doesn’t technically matter, I use unsalted) as you want to clarify and put in a pot over very low heat. For a pound, I would leave it alone for about an hour, checking periodically. The butter will melt, and then foam, and then the solids will drop to the bottom which is how you know it is done. Pour the butter into a jar, leaving the solids on the bottom. The mixture will solidify into an almost coconut oil consistency. That’s all there is to it!