Kunafa (Knafeh) is one of the most famous Middle Eastern deserts. It is a crunchy, buttery dessert made with shredded pastry (or vermicelli or pheni) layers, filled with a creamy soft milk pudding, soaked in sugar syrup and garnished with crushed pistachios. Traditionally, vermicelli is used to make kunafa. Here, I used pheni in place of vermicelli. Pheni is a pre-fried, crispy Indian vermicelli made from flour and ghee.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups pheni
- 250 ml milk
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 4 tbsp cream cheese
- Butter or ghee
- Pistachios-coarsely crushed for garnishing
- Sugar syrup (1 cup water and ½ cup sugar)
- ¼ tsp lemon juice (optional)
Method:
- In a pot, add corn starch, sugar, milk
- Mix well to smooth mixture
- Turn on heat
- Cook it while continuous stirring
- Once it starts becoming thick, add cream cheese
- Mix well and cook the mixture for 4-5 minutes
- Turn off the stove
- Crush pheni into small pieces
- Add melted butter or ghee to it
- Mix well
- Take a baking pan, brush the bottom and sides with melted ghee
- Spread half of crushed pheni in the baking pan
- Press down pheni with the bowl to make it even surface
- Add the creamy mixture you made
- Spread evenly on the pheni surface
- Add another half of pheni+ghee mixture
- Spread evenly
- Again, with the help of bowl, press down gently to make it even surface
- Take one cup water, add ½ cup sugar and boil it to make sugar syrup
- Add ¼ tsp lemon juice to it (optional)
- Optional: saffron, vanilla essence or rose water to sugar syrup
- Keep aside the sugar syrup
- Preheat the oven at 350 F
- Place the baking pan in the center and bake it for 45 minutes
- Turn off the oven once the top surface becomes light brown
- Transfer the baked kunafa to another plate
- Garnish with crushed pistachios
- Pour sugar syrup over kunafa
- Cut into pieces and enjoy!
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