I Made The Viral Dubai Chocolate Bar (from scratch!)

Hello, hello. Today I am back with another recreation adventure. I'm gonna be making the viral Dubai chocolate. If you like chocolate, if you like pistachios, this is gonna be really fun. So I actually think it's been a while since this Dubai chocolate bar first became super viral. It all started when this one creator was in Dubai and bought this chocolate bar, tasted it, became obsessed with the texture, the flavor, the sounds it made. Fast forward to now, it's become somewhat of a global sensation. So it was something that I feel like I really had to try. Unfortunately, I could not get the original fixed chocolatier chocolate bar here, but I did get the Nuts Factory version, which is I guess the New York copycat version. It was very good, but also extremely expensive. It was like $20 for a chocolate bar. So I wanna see if this is something we can kind of replicate in our own kitchen. And also actually to find out how much it actually costs. Is this $20 justified? So to get started, I had to first go and hunt down the tools required, the Dubai chocolate bar mold itself. Or actually, honestly, I just wanted to find a chocolate mold. And what do you know? I've found literally one that was labeled Dubai chocolate bar mold. Item acquired, checked off. Next thing was to hunt down the specialty ingredients. So the Dubai chocolate bar is actually inspired by a Middle Eastern dessert called Kanafeh that is primarily made with kataifi. And I was so happy that I was actually able to find this. Some tahini as well. Then of course I had to get some pistachios. That is the core flavor. I wanna try making it from scratch. That's why we're going with the pistachio nut itself. Chocolate I already have at home. So let me show you everything we have. So here's that mold. There's two different patterns. Here's that tahini. I have two kinds of chocolate here. I'm going with bittersweet instead of milk chocolate. Also some white chocolate. We have this kataifi. This is what it looks like. It is essentially just shredded phyllo dough. Kind of looks like noodles right here. And then I have this giant bag of pistachio. The ones I got are already shelled, but I still wanna give them a little roast for deeper flavor. Just gonna toast them in the oven for a couple minutes. Put that on here. Full tray of pistachios. Smells good already. It looks like a lot, but a one pound bag really only makes one cup of pistachio butter. So pistachios are not cheap. Put that in the oven. Chicken on that in a sec. While we're waiting for the nuts to be toasted, gonna just chop up some of this kataifi. This is what really makes the chocolate bar so good. Open this up. We only need a third of this. It really does look like noodles to me. Five ounces, yeah. That looks about good. Still have a lot left though, so maybe I'll make another dessert with this. Roughly chopping this up a little bit. It's for those bite-sized crunch pieces. It is uncooked dough after all, so now to toast them in some butter and really make them extra flaky. In goes my butter. Not trying to brown it or anything. Just waiting for it to crisp up. I know it's just butter, but it just smells so good already. Just love dough and butter. I will also say this is my first time working with kataifi. The fact that the dough is in this type of shape, there's actually so many things you can make with this. Little bit of color now. Here's what it's looking like a couple minutes later. Definitely a lot crispier. I'm gonna give it a little taste. Definitely very crunchy at this point. And just a little bit buttery, which I think is really nice. So I can set this aside and get started on the pistachio butter. While we're waiting for the pistachios to be roasted, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to our sponsor for today, Away. You all already know how much I travel, how much I love it. 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I've always preferred luggage that has interior pockets, just easier for packing. And also to have these smooth-gliding 360 spinner wheels. This way, I can just row it much more easily when I'm leaving my way through the airport. So with summer travel season coming up, if you've been looking for some new travel essentials, you can get 10% off your first order at Away. Can either use the link in the description box that I'm gonna put right below here, or scan the QR code right here to check out Away. For now, though, back to our chocolate adventure. Roasted pistachios here. Try to scoop this in, in like a crazy fashion. Oops. All right, all right, all right. And try to give it a blitz. Ooh, did you see how fast that turned into a powder of sorts? It's like super strong pistachio aroma. Right now, it is very powdery, so I'm gonna keep doing this until the oil kind of starts releasing and it becomes more ooey-gooey. I think it needs a little help. Definitely becoming more of a dough right now. A little bit of neutral oil to help. We can do it. Release your oils. Maybe it was a better idea to just buy the pistachio butter, huh? No regrets. Come on, come on. Slowly but surely. I think it's starting to become a little more pliant. You can see it, the oil. So this is kind of the texture we have right now. It's a little bit like ice cream, I wanna say. Definitely already a lot more easier to spread around than earlier. I just need you to see. It is much creamier right now. Look at this consistency. We went from super pasty to this, ooh, it's hot, it's hot. Beautiful, creamy-looking situation. Almost looks like buttercream frosting. I love it. Just so our homemade paste doesn't lose out, I'm gonna add a bit of sugar in here too. Pinch of salt. 15 to 20 minutes later, we have this beautiful cream. Not mad about the color either. So we're gonna just scoop this out. I cannot believe we went from lumpy nut mixture to this. That's the beauty of nut butters. Ooh, it is gorgeous. Could just eat this straight, honestly. This is such a beautiful texture. This is what's gonna give it that creaminess. Another core flavor here is some tahini. Gonna add two tablespoons of that, more of that nutty flavor. The thing about Turkish pistachios, they do give you that really lovely green. I'm gonna give this a try. Ooh, oh, it's lovely. Because it's nutty and it's already kind of savory, you get that really nice satisfaction of that sweet and savory flavor profile. The core of the chocolate bar flavor is here. So now it's time to prep our chocolate casing. My little tempering station is going on back here. So let me pour out my chocolates and bring it over. White chocolate going on first. A nice little stir. There we go. White chocolate just for a little bit of decoration on top. There's no really rule here. It's just however you wanna do it. I feel like they kind of just splotch it all over. Just doing a little artistic drizzle, as I like to say. I'm gonna go ahead and pop this in the freezer and then we can get started on melting the other chocolate. Here's kind of the mixture we're going with. Put a little bit of white chocolate, semi-sweet and bittersweet, mostly because I don't have milk chocolate at home. So trying to replicate that with what I already have. Just going to melt that in here and then we'll temper it in just a sec. Back over this side to finish up our chocolate. So now just bittersweet chocolate in here, letting that melt. Look at that. Ooh, gonna bring back out my chocolate molds. Here's what that white chocolate looks like now. It's actually hardened considerably. Just going to lay on the milk chocolate now. It's still a bit hot, though, this one. Drizzle that on. Just trying to spread that out right now. Cover the sides here. Did the best I could. I kind of regret buying brown for the chocolate mold. Pop this in the freezer, 10 minutes or so until it hardens and then back again now that the chocolate is almost ready to go. I wanted to wait until the last minute to make our nice, crunchy pistachio mixture. And I'm going to toss all of this right in. And then literally all of this nice pistachio. This is the money shot right there. Trying to get every little bit here, especially because this paste is so good. Once it's all in there, just gonna mix this up. It's okay if we crush it a little. That buttery flavor is still there. I still smell it. And now with that nuttiness from the pistachio. Ooh, mama. Oh my God, forget the chocolate bar. Honestly, a sundae with this, cake with this layer. Bringing my chocolate bar back here. I'm gonna focus on just putting this mixture in the center. That just goes right in. And if I have extra, I am not complaining. Just keep adding that in there. Literally, I'm like, how much can I put in here? I would like to put as much as possible if I can. Chocolate is now going in. That little tap really helped to make it all balanced on top again. This is basically done. I'm gonna just pop it in the freezer for a couple hours and then we can check on it. Mine is totally solidified. With that bite though, I feel like this is already going to be good. See you soon. Okay, I am checking back in now. It's been actually almost 24 hours. The moment of truth. I have it right here in my hands. And you can see that it has completely set. Again, with how I really stuffed it full of pistachio yesterday, you can see it oozing out a little bit, but this should come out pretty easily. Let's see who has mentioned. Ooh, okay, yeah. Oh my God, that is a lot of chocolate. Coming out super nicely. I see the white chocolate bits now. Wait, actually though, this came out so perfect. Here is our second one. So happy with how this looks. But again, before I get too carried away, the main thing is about the inside though. So let's break it open. Okay, maybe not. Oh, oh, I did it. I was not expecting it to actually break open like that, but holy moly. Oh my God. Look at this. This is the Dubai chocolate moment we were waiting for. Can definitely see the pistachio spread in there. All those crunchy layers. And of course, for the purposes of this video, I actually bought one from Nuts Factory. To do a little comparison in terms of thickness, I feel like the monstrosity I have created is actually thicker. Homemade version, and this is the store-bought version. Surprisingly, the pistachio that we made at home is a lot more green. I was not expecting that. I did not add any food coloring to this. So this is purely just all pistachio itself. Now for the important part, the taste test. I feel like that was what made this chocolate so sensational. That first bite where you bite into it, you have that creamy, crunchy middle. Ooh, that was so satisfying. I feel like this is the deluxe version of the store-bought. Flavor-wise, they actually taste very similar. With the store-bought one, the cream feels a little more liquidy versus this one. It is giving more of that fudgy, cream-like texture, which I kind of really like. It's so good. There it is. The viral Dubai chocolate bar finally recreated. I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. I feel like individually, the components I will definitely want to be making again. In terms of cost, though, we did spend quite a bit. $30 for the pistachios, $7 for the tini, $7 for the kataifi. It actually sort of equals out if you buy a bar. It's just that, of course, the homemade version, a lot more satisfaction. I can really pack a lot of pistachio in there. So I'm glad we gave this a try. Would love to know also if you're up to the challenge. Otherwise, if you liked this video, remember to like and subscribe, and I will see you in the next video.