Dubai Chocolate (Kunafa Chocolate) Inspired Christmas Trees

 What if the viral Dubai chocolate turned inside out and dressed up for Christmas🤔? You may get these!

Composition:
🌲 Crunchy kataifi pastry coloured with a little pandan paste
🌲 Pistachio ganache
🌲 Dark chocolate ganache 
🌲 Homemade pistachio paste
🌲 Dark/milk chocolate & a little toasted kataifi pastry* at the base
🌲 White chocolate star & tinsel, bauble sprinkles

I made these as log cake decorations. I am sure you can guess what flavour profile of log cakes I am making this year🤭! I will be sharing that in my next post.

You may refer to my reel for the visuals of the process:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDbxcFySarn/?igsh=dnA0bm0xN3pnOWRk

Dubai Chocolate Christmas Trees

Ingredients (makes about twelve-fifteen 5-6cm tall trees):

Green Kataifi Pastry

70g kataifi pastry 

30g butter + 1-2 drops pandan paste (to colour. Feel free to use green colouring)

1-1.5 tbs caster sugar (as pastry binder during baking)

1. Chop kataifi pastry to shorter segments. Add melted butter with pandan paste and sugar a little at a time to pastry. Mix well after each addition to colour the pastry green evenly.

2. Spread the pastry out in small portions in a very thin layer between parchment paper. Press it flat. Freeze until very firm, at least 2h or overnight 

3. Cut paper cones to height of about 5-6cm. You may have trees with different heights for a nicer display contrast. For each size of tree, cut open the paper cone to be used as template.

4. Cut frozen pastry using template to trace. Let it soften slightly and carefully fit it into the prepared paper cone. Press the pastry firmly to the sides and bottom of the cone.

5. Bake at 140-150Cfan/160-170C for 9-12 min and turn it out from the cone. Crisp it up and brown it further by baking for another 5-10 min, checking every few minutes to ensure that the browning is controlled. 

Store in airtight condition until assembly.

Pistachio Paste*

50g pistachio kernels

10g honey

15g water (more if needed)

* Pistachio paste is typically made from blanched pistachios with skin removed. But because I wanted to increase the pistachio flavour, I reserved a portion of the blanched nuts with skin removed to bake in the oven. I used low temperature to bake for a longer time to avoid browning the nuts too much. If using more baked nuts, you may need to add a little more water when blending as baked nuts are harder and drier than blanched nuts. If using only blanched nuts, you need less water. The resulting paste with baked pistachios is grainier than if only blanched pistachios were used.

1. Bring a saucepan of water to boil. Turn the heat off and blanch pistachio kernels for 3 min. Drain and dry briefly on paper towels. Remove skins.

2. Portion 15g of skinned kernels. Bake in a single layer at 100C for 2h. 

3. Blend all ingredients together until smooth paste forms, gradually adding water only as needed. Use a powerful blender for a smoother paste. This may take several rounds of blending and scraping to get it smooth

Pistachio Ganache

15g pistachio paste

70g white chocolate couverture

15g hot water

Pinch of salt

1. Heat white chocolate until warm, soft and partially melted. 

2. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well until smooth. Using immersion blender helps.

3. Press cling wrap onto surface of ganache. Refrigerate 2h or overnight. Transfer into piping bag before using

Dark Chocolate Ganache

50g 55% dark chocolate couverture 

3g honey 

22g hot cream/water

Pinch of salt

1. Follow method for pistachio ganache

Assembly

1. Place baked kataifi pastry cone in mold to hold it in place. 

2. Pipe and spread a thin layer of pistachio ganache followed by dark chocolate ganache

3. Fill the cavity with pistachio paste

4. Cover base with melted chocolate of choice and sprinkle on some kataifi pastry fried with butter (optional pastry). Freeze for 5 min

* To toast kataifi pastry. Coat 15g finely chopped pastry with 4-5g melted butter. Fry over low heat until golden brown and crisp. I used coloured pastry so it appears a little green in the video.

5. Flip the trees upright. Decorate with melted white chocolate and sprinkles/additional decoration of your choice

Here's a look at the trees before the stars are added.

Here's a closer look at the insides!

Here's the log cake version of this flavour combination!

with love,

Phay Shing