The ‘Dubai chocolate strawberry cup’ has taken over TikTok simply in time for Valentine’s Day

For months, TikTok has been flooded with videos of people biting into an extra-large, extra-crunchy chocolate bar that hails from a chocolatier in Dubai. The sweet treat, which has been dubbed ‘Dubai chocolate’, has a milk chocolate shell filled with pistachio cream and knafeh, a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made from shredded filo pastry.

The original ‘Can’t Get Knafeh of It’ bar is the brainchild of Sarah Hamouda, the British-Egyptian founder of Fix Dessert Chocolatier, and is only available to buy in-store and online on Deliveroo in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. But that hasn’t stopped the gooey dessert from becoming a global sensation.

The original ‘Can’t Get Knafeh of It’ bar

Home cooks on TikTok have tried their hand at recreating it; small businesses have started selling copycat version of the pistachio-filled chocolate bar on Etsy; and Lindt was one of the first big-name brands to drop its own take on the trend in a limited-edition release in December, which sold out in a day.

This week, FIX released a new blondie chocolate bar filled with caramelised pecans and crunchy biscuit – it’s called ‘Catch Me If Pecan’. The internet, however, hasn’t quite moved on from the indulgent combination of pistachio cream and knafeh, and a deconstructed version of the pistachio dessert has gone viral just in time for Valentine’s Day.

The ‘Dubai chocolate strawberry cup’ marries all of the best ingredients from the original chocolate bar, but they’re melted and layered over strawberries in – you guessed it – a cup. There’s no official recipe, but when you search for it on TikTok, you’ll find hundreds of videos, including Nara Smith’s.

However, unless you’ve taken the day off on February 14th to make the entire dessert from scratch (yes, the model and influencer even DIYs the pistachio cream and knafeh dough), we’d suggest following @gabriela.vlogs’ video as you’ll only need five ingredients: strawberries, chocolate, knafeh, pistachio cream and pistachios.

The ‘Dubai chocolate strawberry’ cup is going viral on TikTok

Start by frying the knafeh in butter until golden brown and setting it aside to cool, before adding in the pistachio cream. Next, slice the strawberries and chop up the pistachios. Melt the chocolate. Then, layer each cup with strawberries, the knafeh-pistachio cream mixture and the melted chocolate. Repeat the layers until the cup is full. And enjoy! (As well as posting on TikTok, of course).