Nabulsi Knafeh

Allergen Information:

Knafeh is the undisputed queen of Levantine desserts, originating from Nablus. Traditionally, it’s this insane combination of shredded phyllo dough (kataifi) layered with warm, stretchy, salty cheese, soaked in scented sugar syrup, and topped with pistachios. It’s salty, sweet, crunchy, gooey, and floral all at once.

This ice cream takes that hot, gooey experience and freezes it without losing the soul of the dish. We’re swapping the hard-to-find Nabulsi cheese for a blend of goat cheese (for the funk and salt) and cream cheese (for the texture). We’re candying the kataifi until it’s essentially sweet pasta-brittle to ensure it stays crunchy in the freezer. And we’re tying it all together with an orange blossom syrup that smells like a garden.

Fair warning, chief: this isn’t vanilla with some mix-ins. This is a texture bomb. The cheese adds a savory backbone that might confuse your brain for the first two seconds, but once the syrup and pastry hit? You’ll get it.

Ingredients

Cheese Custard Base:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup sugar (reduced slightly to balance the sweet mix-ins)
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 oz fresh goat cheese (chevre), room temperature
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Candied Kataifi Brittle:

• 4 oz kataifi dough (thawed if frozen)
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt

Orange Blossom Syrup Swirl (Attar):

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp orange blossom water

Garnish:

• 1/2 cup shelled pistachios, chopped to dust

Instructions

Candied Kataifi Brittle (make this first, needs to cool):

Prep the dough. Kataifi looks like shredded wheat that gave up on life. Pull the strands apart so they aren’t a solid clump, then chop them into roughly 1-inch pieces. You don’t want long noodles in your ice cream, homie.

Melt the butter in your largest skillet over medium heat. Toss in the chopped kataifi. Cook, stirring CONSTANTLY, until it’s a deep, rich golden brown. Don’t rush this part; you need the moisture out of the dough before you seal it in.

Once the dough is golden, dump the 1/2 cup of sugar right over the top in an even layer. Do. Not. Walk. Away. Stir constantly. The sugar will start to liquefy and turn amber. Keep tossing the kataifi in the melting sugar. It will look clumpy and messy. That’s fine.

Keep tossing until the sugar is fully melted and every strand of dough looks glossy and lacquered. It should smell like caramel. Dump it immediately onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Use two forks to pull it apart and flatten it out before it hardens. You want clusters, not one giant brick.

Let it cool completely. It will be hard as a damn rock. Chop it or smash it into bite-sized gravel.

Orange Blossom Syrup (Attar):

Combine sugar, water, and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes until slightly thickened.

Kill the heat. Stir in the orange blossom water. Let it cool completely, then refrigerate. It should be a thin syrup consistency.

Make Cheese Custard:

In a blender or food processor, blitz the goat cheese, cream cheese, and 1/2 cup of the milk until TOTALLY smooth. If you skip this and just try to whisk the cheese in, you will have little cheese lumps in your ice cream. Nobody wants that.

Combine the remaining milk, heavy cream, and sugar in a saucepan. Heat over medium until steaming—around 170-180°F.

Whisk your egg yolks in a separate bowl. Slowly drizzle about a cup of the hot dairy into the yolks while whisking constantly (standard tempering maneuver), then pour everything back into the pot.

Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon (170-175°F).

Remove from heat. Whisk in the blended cheese mixture until fully dissolved and smooth. Stir in the vanilla and salt.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Cool over an ice bath, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Churn and Assemble:

Spin the base in your ice cream maker until it reaches soft-serve consistency. It will be thick and white.

Spread a layer of ice cream in your container. Scatter a generous handful of the candied kataifi brittle. Drizzle the syrup. Repeat twice. Finish with a dusting of the chopped pistachios.

Freeze for 4+ hours before serving.

Notes

Sourcing Kataifi: You can find kataifi dough in the freezer section of Middle Eastern or Greek markets. It’s sometimes called konafa dough. If you absolutely can’t find it, you could finely shred phyllo dough sheets, but it won’t be quite the same texture. Do not try to use shredded wheat cereal. Just don’t.

The Cheese Factor: Traditional Knafeh uses Nabulsi or Akawi cheese—desalinated semi-hard cheeses that melt beautifully. Since those turn into rubber bricks when frozen, we’re using a blend of goat cheese and cream cheese. The goat cheese mimics the sheep-milk tang of the original, and the cream cheese provides the body. Don’t be scared of the goat cheese—the sugar mellows it out.

Why we candied the pastry: Standard butter-toasted pastry gets soggy in ice cream after about 48 hours. By melting sugar directly onto the dough (the praline method), we created a hydrophobic sugar shell. This means your crunch will outlive us all.

Orange Blossom Water (A Warning): This stuff is potent. The line between “delicate floral note” and “Grandma’s soap factory” is razor thin. Measure carefully. If you’re nervous, start with 1/2 tsp. You want it to be a whisper, not a shout.

Cultural context:

Knafeh is Nablus, and Nablus is knafeh. The city in the West Bank has claimed this dessert as its own for centuries, and Nabulsis take that claim seriously—it’s a point of civic pride, cultural identity, and fierce regional argument across the entire Levant. (Ask someone from Nablus, Beirut, Amman, and Damascus who invented knafeh and you’ll get four different answers, all delivered with complete certainty.) The dish—shredded kataifi pastry layered with fresh cheese, soaked in orange blossom syrup—shows up at celebrations, holidays, and ordinary Tuesday mornings across Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond. Nabulsi cheese itself is a brined white cheese specific to the region, traditionally made from sheep’s or goat’s milk. This ice cream can’t replicate the experience of eating warm knafeh from a street stall in the Old City, but it captures the flavor architecture—salty cheese, sweet syrup, crunchy pastry, floral perfume—and freezes it into something that respects what makes the original extraordinary.

Visual: Stark white base (from the fresh cheeses) contrasting with deep amber candied pastry clusters and bright green pistachio dust. It looks elegant as hell.

What it tastes like:

Salty-tangy creaminess up front from the Nabulsi cheese—savory in a way no other ice cream dares. Then the hard crunch of caramel-coated kataifi, shattering between your teeth. Finishing with sweet floral syrup that ties savory to sweet in one impossible bite. Hits every part of your palate—savory, sweet, floral, textural. It’s a rollercoaster, pal. Tastes like the Old City.