Homemade Dubai Chocolate

[eller]

If you guys follow the latest social media crazes at all, you may have heard of "Dubai chocolate", a relatively new chocolate flavor invention involving pistachio and crunchy bits, (in)famous not only for its high price but also, unfortunately, for tasting really reeeaaaallly good. Well. Anyway, Boyfriend got me a bar as a gift, and I really loved the stuff, but it's (obviously) too expensive to buy on a regular basis. So, we decided to make our own instead!



Ingredients:
- Chocolate. (Not in the photo because we all know what chocolate is.)
- Pistachio paste. (We got a pre-mixed one that's already sweetened, but technically, if you have a lot of time, you could also make that yourself from pistachio, sugar, milk powder, emulsifier, and some random fats.)
- Tahin. (Sesame paste. The stuff is intense and needs to be used sparingly - like, one spoonful on half a jar of pistachio paste - but can't be left out because it's really needed to balance the sweetness of the filling. Without tahin, the results are going to be gross.)
- Kadayıf. (Crunchy dough threads. We got the pre-baked ones because otherwise you'd have to fry them in butter first, which would be an extra step of work, and hey, we're lazy.)



Boyfriend's kitchen is well equipped but not a professional factory, so, we were working with primitive means. You know. Pour liquid chocolate from a pot into silicone muffin molds. Freeze for a few minutes. Add a spoonful of the filling (which is really just a mix of pistachio paste, tahin, and kadayıf that's hopefully not crushed too badly during the mixing process). Pour more chocolate on top, freeze again. EAT!!! Making nice-looking chocolate bars with a thin, even outer layer would have required quite sophisticated technology: the behavior of that filling is not user-friendly. (Actually, I suspect the chocolate's high price is not only due to the ingredients - though, of course, pistachios are not cheap - but mainly due to the cost of production.) This time, we did not care: we just wanted to eat Dubai chocolate without having to pay for Dubai chocolate.

I'm glad to inform you that the experiment was successful: while our result doesn't quite look all that professional (we will need to practice more, ahahaha), it tastes exactly like the original.

Comments

[james]

Thank you for this! I've been wondering about the stuff since I heard about it, and this looks like something I can do.

[eller]

It's entirely doable, the only difficulty is mixing and spreading the filling without crushing all the crunchy bits prematurely. And I suppose making it look pretty would be its own art form. :)

[light_of_summer]

This sounds awesome!

I, unfortunately, have a chocolate allergy, so will just have to imagine it.

But I'd like to share this post with pokershaman, if you're okay with that. He either is or used to be a serious amateur chocolatier, and I think he might be interested.

If you're OK with me sharing it, could you also let me know if the post is friends-locked, or just requires a Dreamwidth login to see?

Thanks!

[eller]

Sure, you can share it - this post is public and you don't even have to be logged in to see it. Nothing in here is a secret. :D I mean, a serious amateur chocolatier will likely figure out a better way to do it, but that's fine.

Ouch, chocolate allergy is mean. I suppose you could try to make the same thing from cocoa-free chocolate - I'd suspect that especially the carob-based versions would go well with the pistachio flavor and result in something slightly "nuttier" but perfectly edible - but unfortunately, I have not tried this (it's really my first time experimenting with Dubai chocolate), so this is just a semi-educated guess.

[light_of_summer]

Whoops! Belated thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

I don't follow crazes at all, so how sweet of you (pun intended) to fill me in on this. No idea where I can get pistachio paste around here, much less kadayif, but it looks like something I would like to try some day.