Knafeh (Including Künefe)

Knafeh is a sweet in which baked dough is soaked in syrup and combined with cheese, milk cream or nuts. It is found across West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. The dough on the surface may be fine and thread-like or made of fine crumbs. In some versions dairy is baked together with the dough, in others it is sandwiched in afterward, and some use no cheese at all. Turkish künefe is a close relative, and in Antakya the local specialty is made by layering thread-like dough with a dedicated cheese and baking it on both sides.

Antakya’s Thread-Like Dough and the Fine Crumb Dough of Na’ameh

Antakya’s kadayıf is made by pouring a dough of flour and water, soft enough to flow, onto a hot metal plate in fine threads, drying it briefly and gathering it up. It differs both from the thin, sheet-like pastry of baklava and from dried noodles that look similar. When it is mixed with butter and baked, the fine strands form crisp, stacked layers, and fat and syrup seep into the gaps between the threads.

In a shallow round pan, a fresh dedicated cheese is sandwiched between two layers of kadayıf, and the pastry is turned over so that both top and bottom are baked. The thread-like dough encloses the cheese from above and below, giving both sides a toasty golden color and a crisp texture. The sweetness comes from the syrup added after baking. The hot cheese stretches into strings, and the outer dough absorbs the syrup. Even if the dedicated cheese is replaced with the same amount of aged hard cheese, the saltiness, moisture and melting will not be the same.

Meanwhile, the na’ameh that Fufu’s Kitchen inherited from the author’s mother is made by baking flour, fine semolina and other ingredients at a low temperature without browning, drying the result and then crumbling it. The crumbs are pressed firmly into a ghee-brushed pan, layered with drained Arabic cheese and mozzarella, baked and inverted onto a plate. Because the fine crumb dough ends up on top and the melted cheese on the bottom, both the way the crumbs are made and the way the layers are stacked differ from the Antakya method of enclosing the cheese with threads above and below.

Desalting Nabulsi Cheese

Palestinian food writer Dima Al-Sharif explains Nablus knafeh in terms of how white Nabulsi cheese, preserved in brine, is used. The salt is removed to a level suited to the sweet, and how much to leave is a matter of the artisan’s judgment. Another of her published recipes (ingredient proportions and method) also includes boiling the cheese in fresh water and then soaking it in water. To “sweeten” the cheese can therefore mean not mixing in sugar but removing the salt used to preserve it.

Mozzarella can provide a similar stretch, but it does not reproduce the flavor of Nabulsi. Even so, some home versions of na’ameh combine available cheeses, and both the ingredients of the place of origin and home substitutions exist as methods in their own right.

For home cooks in Japan, künefe made by sandwiching mozzarella between thread-like kadaif and baking it in an ovenproof dish has also been introduced. In Hattori Cooking’s published example, kadaif coated with melted butter and vegetable oil is laid on the bottom and top, and once it has baked firm it is turned over so that both sides brown. Lemon juice and zest are added to the finishing syrup. Alongside the methods that use desalted Nabulsi or Antakya’s dedicated cheese, it is one example assembled with available ingredients and an oven.

Gaza’s Knafeh Centers on Nuts and Spices

The knafeh ‘arabiyya recorded by Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt during fieldwork in Gaza in 2011 layers crumbs of toasted semolina dough with walnuts, is scented with cinnamon and nutmeg, and is soaked in warm syrup. It was described as a celebratory sweet more often made by sweet shops than at home. At celebrations, it was a sweet enjoyed for the crunch of nuts and the aroma of spices in place of the stretch of cheese.

In contrast to the flavor and stretch of Nablus cheese, this knafeh ‘arabiyya handed down in Gaza centers on the dense crunch of nuts and on spices. It is not a substitute that leaves out cheese, but a distinctive sweet handed down in Gaza.

Sandwiching Milk Cream Between Baked Thread-Like Dough

In Lebanon, one method for osmalieh is to bake two layers of thread-like dough separately and sandwich cream between them afterward. In the published recipe from chef Hussien Dekmak’s cookbook, the dough is brushed with oil, each layer is baked separately until golden, and the excess oil is drained off.

For the filling, fresh cream is cooked with strips of toast with the crusts removed, scented with rose water and orange blossom water, and cooled. Using bread to thicken the cream is also a feature of this recipe. The cream is spread on one baked layer, the other layer is placed on top, and it is finished with syrup and pistachios. Compared with methods in which cheese is baked together with the dough and melted, both the step of heating the dairy and the point at which it is combined with the dough are different.

Differences Passed Down in Families and Breakfast in Lebanon

The knafeh at his grandfather’s house, as described by Bethlehem chef Fadi Kattan, used pine nuts, cinnamon and orange blossom syrup, and contained no cheese. His parents’ house made the Nablus-style version with cheese, and on celebrations and days with guests the family gathered around a whole pan. Even within one family, different forms have been handed down.

In Lebanon, there is another occasion for eating it. Food writer Maureen Abood describes the custom of tucking the cheese version into the pocket of ka’ak, a sesame-topped bread, and eating it for breakfast. In the recipe handed down in her family as well, the thread layer and cheese are baked, turned over and finished with syrup. Besides being shared from a large platter as a celebratory sweet, it is also eaten tucked into bread as a morning meal.

Multiple Legends Linked to the Meals of Caliphs

According to a legend, before dawn during the month of fasting, a physician recommended a filling sweet to a ruler who complained of hunger. In one version introduced by Egyptian folklorist Shaimaa al-Saidi, it was a sweet for Mu’awiya in Syria. Another version names the Umayyad ruler Sulayman, and in Egypt it is told as the sweet with which the Fatimid ruler al-Mu’izz was welcomed at the breaking of the fast when he entered Cairo. The stories differ from legend to legend as to which ruler it was made for and when it was meant to be eaten.

A Medieval Name and the Later Thread-Like Dough and Cheese Filling

Arab culinary historian Daniel Newman links the name to the Coptic kenefiten, which referred to bread or cakes. The 13th- to 15th-century cookbooks from Syria, Egypt and al-Andalus that he cites contain several recipes, but these involved frying thin flatbreads and rolling or cutting them. Although the name was the same, they were not today’s two layers of fine threads and cheese.

In a sweet he reconstructed from a 15th-century Egyptian book, the dough is cut thin like noodles, cooked with sesame oil, sugar and honey, and combined with saffron-colored almonds or pistachios, rose water and other ingredients. Rather than layering dairy, it was a sweet based mainly on fat, syrup and nuts. Making the dough thin by cutting it is also different from the present-day technique of pouring soft dough into fine threads.

The early record of a cheese-filled version that Newman cites in an interview is a cookbook published in Beirut in 1885. There is a gap in time between the medieval name and the cheese-filled method that appears later. The medieval name, the thread-like dough and the cheese filling each appear in the sources at different times.

The Sweets Culture of Nablus and Its Adaptation in Dubai Chocolate

In Nablus, cutting and sharing a pan of hot cheese and syrup is tied to the city’s markets and to the reception of guests. The description of the old city that Palestine placed on its Tentative List for World Heritage also counts sweet-making, especially Nabulsi knafeh, as part of the city’s living culture. Sweet-making is presented as part of the culture of an old city for which World Heritage nomination is being sought.

In recent years, products that incorporate the crispness of baked kadayıf into a pistachio layer inside chocolate have also spread. The chocolate bar made by the Dubai shop Fix Dessert Chocolatier differs in both ingredients and way of eating from a pan of hot cheese-filled knafeh. Bethlehem chef Kattan, too, regards such products as separate sweets derived from knafeh. While there is a custom of sharing knafeh baked in town, separate sweets that take on the texture of kadayıf are also seen as connected to this name.

Antakya Künefesi, Protected by a Geographical Indication

Antakya künefesi was registered for EU geographical indication protection in 2023. The indication applies to a specific product name with regional ingredients and a method: thread-like dough, a dedicated cheese, butter and syrup. The registration covers this Hatay specialty made with hot cheese, while other regions have handed down knafeh with different shapes, doughs and fillings.

Glossary