Dubai chocolate gelato

Pistachio and tahini gelato with milk chocolate and crisp toasted kataifi — a home version of the most visible flavour of the last two seasons.

The model is the “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” bar from Dubai’s Fix Dessert Chocolatier, which went viral in 2024: milk chocolate filled with pistachio cream, tahini and toasted kataifi. Kataifi is shredded filo pastry, the base of Middle Eastern knafeh. Czech ice cream shops put “Dubai” on the board as early as the 2025 season, and in 2026 Lindt launched a Dubai Style sundae with ice cream, kadayif and pistachio sauce. Here it becomes gelato: pistachio paste and a little tahini in a milk base, chocolate melted into the mix and the kataifi folded in at the very end so it stays crisp.

Type: Italian gelato · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Challenging

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 700 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 35 g skimmed milk powder
  • 80 g pistachio paste 100 % (100 % pistachios, no sugar or colouring)
  • 20 g sesame paste (tahini) (light sesame tahini — the original bar has it too)
  • 70 g milk chocolate
  • 90 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 45 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 2 g locust bean gum (carob gum, E410) (or 3 g of ready-made gelato stabiliser)
  • 1 g guar gum (E412)
  • 40 g kataifi (shredded filo pastry, kadayif) (for topping or folding in at the end, frozen, from a Greek or Turkish food shop)
  • 15 g butter 82 % (for topping or folding in at the end)
  • 10 g granulated sugar (sucrose) (for topping or folding in at the end)
  • 20 g pistachios (shelled, unsalted) (for topping or folding in at the end, chopped, to sprinkle)

Making the mix

  1. Mix the locust bean gum and guar gum thoroughly with the dry sugars (granulated sugar and dextrose). On their own they would form lumps as soon as they get wet.
  2. Pour the milk and milk powder into a pan and heat, whisking. When the mixture is lukewarm (about 40 °C), gradually add the sugars and stabiliser and whisk until dissolved.
  3. Heat the mix to 85 °C (check with a thermometer) and hold it there for 1–2 minutes, stirring constantly. This pasteurises the mix and fully hydrates the stabiliser.
  4. Take the pan off the heat, add the broken-up milk chocolate and stir until it melts. Then add the pistachio paste and tahini and blend smooth with a stick blender.
  5. Cool the mix quickly in a bowl set in iced water.
  6. Cover and age in the fridge for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
  7. Snip the kataifi into pieces about 2 cm long and tease the strands apart with your fingers. Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the kataifi and toast over a medium heat for 5–7 minutes, stirring, until golden. Add the sugar towards the end and stir for another minute.
  8. Spread the toasted kataifi on a plate and let it cool completely. It goes in at the very end — stirred into the mix it would go soft.

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes ahead so the bowl can pre-chill.
  2. Pour in the chilled mix no higher than the fill line (with a smaller bowl, churn in two batches) and churn for 30–40 minutes, until it has the consistency of thick whipped cream.
  3. When the gelato is ready, fold in two-thirds of the cooled kataifi with a spatula.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 2 hours.

Add the kataifi only after churning. The machine would crush it, and in the wet mix it would go soft within an hour.

Total time: 8 h 45 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Take the frozen bowl out of the freezer just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the chilled mix — no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the ice cream thickens. There’s no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Fold two-thirds of the cooled kataifi into the finished gelato with a spatula.
  5. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for 3 hours.

Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours beforehand (until you can no longer hear the coolant sloshing inside). The mix must be thoroughly chilled.

Total time: 9 h 35 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Divide the chilled mix between CREAMi tubs, filling each no higher than the MAX line (a full batch makes about two standard tubs).
  2. Put the lids on and freeze on a level surface for 24 hours.
  3. Place a tub in the machine and run the Gelato program.
  4. Use a spoon to dig a well about 4 cm wide in the centre, all the way to the bottom, add the cooled kataifi and chopped pistachios and run the Mix-in program.
  5. If the ice cream is crumbly or powdery, run Re-spin (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk first).

Programme: Gelato

Only some models (such as the Deluxe range) have a Gelato program. If yours doesn’t, use the Ice Cream program. A standard tub holds about 470 ml, a Deluxe tub about 700 ml. Don’t fill above the MAX line, and freeze it level — the machine doesn’t handle an uneven block well.

Total time: 30 h 18 min

Stages

Preparation
25 min
Cooking
15 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
5 h
Churning
35 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
8 h 45 min

Plan: what to do and when

The whole recipe takes 8 h 45 min, of which 40 min is hands-on — the rest is waiting you can spend elsewhere.

The day before (6 h 10 min)

  • Prepare the mix (weigh and stir the ingredients) — 25 min
  • Cook the mix — 15 min
  • Cool the mix down — 30 min
  • Let the mix age in the fridge — 5 h

On the day of serving (2 h 35 min)

  • Churn in the machine — 35 min
  • Let it harden in the freezer — 2 h

Serving and storage

Sprinkle with the remaining kataifi and chopped pistachios just before serving. Gelato is served warmer than cream ice cream, at −11 to −13 °C. Move the tub from the freezer to the fridge 15–20 minutes before serving and work it with a spatula before scooping.

In a sealed container with cling film pressed onto the surface it’s best within a week; after that, ice crystals start to build up. Never refreeze ice cream that has melted. The kataifi gradually softens in the ice cream — it stays crisp for about two days.

Tips

  • Kataifi is sold frozen in Greek, Turkish and Middle Eastern food shops. Let it thaw and pull the strands apart before snipping, or it will toast unevenly.
  • You can replace the tahini with another 20 g of pistachio paste. The tahini is what gives the slightly bitter sesame note of the original bar.
  • To get even closer to the original, pour melted dark chocolate over the scoop — in the bar it forms the shell.
  • You can buy locust bean gum and guar gum in health food shops. To do without a stabiliser, stir 15 g of cornflour (cornstarch) into a little cold milk, whisk it into the mix and simmer for 2 minutes. The ice cream will be slightly denser.

Why it works

The pistachio paste and tahini bring their own fat to the mix (about 4.5 % of its weight between them), and the milk chocolate adds more fat as well as sugar. That is why there is no cream in the recipe and less granulated sugar than in an ordinary gelato — total fat works out at around 9 % and total solids at around 40 %, at the top of the gelato range. Anti-freezing power (PAC) tells you how much water stays unfrozen at a given temperature — the higher it is, the softer the ice cream. Dextrose has almost twice the anti-freezing power of granulated sugar but is less sweet, which is why the two sugars are combined.

Related recipes

  • Pistachio gelato

    Gelato made with 100 % pistachio paste, with no colouring or flavouring. Brownish green, nutty and with a faintly salty finish.

  • Bacio — chocolate with hazelnuts

    Dark chocolate and hazelnut paste with pieces of roasted hazelnuts. Darker and bolder than gianduia.

How we calculate the composition · What PAC and POD mean · Balance this mix in the calculator

Sources