Homemade Lebanese Knefeh

Prep Time 45

Cook Time 30

Ingredients

Ater

300 g (1.5 cups) sugar
185 ml (0.75 cup) water
Squeeze of lemon
2 tbsp orange blossom water
2 tbsp rose water

Crust

250 g crumbs, I used crushed Marie biscuits but you can use almost anything and they will all produce similar results. Gandour biscuits, kaak, breadcrumbs, crushed toast etc.
113 g (0.5 cup) unsalted butter, melted
1 or 2 tbsp of ater to be used only if using crushed toast or breadcrumbs as they do not contain any sugar

Milky Custard

750 ml (3 cups) full fat milk
80 g (0.5 cup) semolina
30 g (2 tbsp) sugar
0.25 tbsp (1 sachet) mastic (optional but recommended)
1 tbsp rosewater (optional but recommended)
1 tbsp orange blossom water (optional but recommended)

Cheese

350 g shredded mozzarella cheese – no need to put in water to desalinate, works perfectly as is

Instructions

Prep the parts:

To make the ater: On a medium high fire, mix the sugar and water. When the mixture thickens a bit (about 4 minutes later), add a squeeze of lemon and continue boiling for 1 to 2 minutes. Take off the fire and stir in the orange blossom water and rosewater. Store in a jar and set aside.
To make the crust: Blitz the kaak or biscuits together to form fine crumbs and then mix with melted butter. If using crumbs that don’t contain any sugar, add a tablespoon or two of ater to the mix. Set aside.
To make the custard: First crush the mastic with the sugar in a mortar and pestle. Then in a pot on medium high heat, add the milk, semolina, and sugar / mastic. Bring to a boil mixing constantly. Make sure the semolina doesn’t stick to the bottom. Once the mixture thickens (ribbon consistency), remove off the heat and add the orange blossom water and the rosewater. Stir them in. If you don’t like the taste of these waters you can add a teaspoon of vanilla instead but you won’t get the traditional taste.
The cheese, if it’s not shredded already, shred it. To be faster, you could blitz it in a food processor.

Assemble:

Start by adding 75% of the crumbs to the bottom of the pan and compress them well. Go up on the edges as well. Then spoon half the custard and cover the crumbs. Spread it evenly with a spatula. Add the cheese, evenly covering the custard. Add the remaining custard on top. Finally finish off with the little remaining breadcrumbs. Do not attempt to mix the custard and cheese together because you will get less of a cheese pull, best to keep it in the middle of the custard layers.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 25-30 minutes or until the crust is golden. Once it’s ready, wait for 3 minutes, flip in one swift movement and serve with crushed pistachios and some ater. Enjoy!

Notes

I made it in a 28 cm pie dish and it was perfect in size for these amounts. I assembled it knowing I was going to flip it, but you can assemble it in the opposite way (leaving most crumbs on the top) and keep it in the pan. I’m a sucker for theatrics so I flipped but either way works!