Knafeh Queens Bring Palestinian Dessert To Southland

LOS ANGELES, CA — When you eat Knafeh, you're not just tasting a sweet and salty, gooey, cheesy and buttery phyllo dough dessert — you're also tasting history.

Fatmah Muhammad launched Knafeh Queens to honor her heritage, her mother, and her family whose recipe was passed on for generations from their village in Palestine to Southern California. Her recipe is adored by people around the country and now is available at markets in Sacramento and Orange County, most recently offered at Altayebat Market in Anaheim.

"If you go to Palestine, you’re not going to leave without having a slice of Knafeh," Muhammad told Patch. "Otherwise your trip is not complete."

Like many Palestinians and Arabs around the world, Knafeh is something used to celebrate and connect to joy and home. Like the people who carried on the traditional dessert, it's survived years and is part of the global diaspora culture. It's pronounced in a variety of ways from the Arabic word — Knafeh, Kunafeh, Kunafa, Kanafeh, Konafi — depending on where you are or are from in the Middle East. In Muhammad's village, they call it Ichnafa.

"It’s something that as a Palestinian little girl, growing up, it was a lot of my amazing memories revolve around Knafeh," she said. "It’s a dessert that unites people. It’s usually served at celebrations, family events, birthdays."

Her award-winning treat has now become highly sought after by everyone from Anwar Hadid, Dua Lipa and other celebrities, to people celebrating weddings, bridal showers, baby showers and sending gifts to others in the pandemic. It also comes in a variety of sizes and flavors, from cupcake form to pies and cakes.

For Muhammad, she has a great sense of pride as she passes on the recipe that her mother taught her.

"It’s my mom’s recipe that I learned at age seven and she learned from her mom. It’s generations passed on," she said. "I remember the day my mom gave me her stamp of approval. As a little kid, I felt like 'I made it' because my mom was so particular and such a perfectionist about her Knafeh. I was eager to learn."

Now, she has her own business and stores are distributing her sweets. It's now the tradition she passes on to her four children.

"Now my older daughter makes it with me, she’s a co-owner of the company," she said. "My younger daughter reminds me of me, she’s 7, and wants to make it from A to Z."

Muhammad studied psychology in college. The move towards owning her own business happened over time.

"We never saw it becoming a business," she said. "I’m actually a psychology major. But I always had the passion and love for the Knafeh. I just always remember it being something that united people together."

Her passion really blossomed following the shooting in San Bernardino in 2015, as she experienced a rise in negative rhetoric and attitudes toward Muslim and Arab people in the wake of the devasting attack. Around that time, Muhammad came home from a date with her husband and found out her daughter was baking Knafeh while they were out. She had started to make it for friends and teachers — she became passionate about it.

"'Girl, you’re starting to be expensive,'" she told her daughter. "'You’re making this all the time.'"

Her daughter asked, "'Why don’t we make it, why don’t we sell it?'"

Everyone who ate it was happy with it, she said.

"Really good friends would be like, 'Fatmah, I could totally see this dessert in every freezer,'" she said. "People started saying, 'Dude why don’t you sell it?' I was having dreams about selling it. It was kind of like God was talking to me."

So she listened. But she needed a plan first.

"We decided to start the business and I remember telling my daughter, we have to have a purpose," she said.

They decided they wanted to take back the negative narrative about Muslims and Muslim women suffering from oppression. They wanted to show people how fiercely independent Muslim women are, how driven and dedicated they are.

She entered a pie contest at the Orange County Fair to share her baking skills.

"This guy in line was like ‘Oh did your husband drop you off?’ I was like, 'No, I actually dropped him off then came,'" she said. "I ended up getting first place with my Knafeh that day. At the end of it, he came up to me and wanted to know about my Knafeh."

She's not just baking, she said. She's sharing who she is and developing a women-led company.

"If we can build bridges, imagine, this guy literally hated my guts at the beginning, and at the end he wanted to get to know me," Muhammad said.

Now, they're serving royal happiness with every bite, she said. They've won several food and pie contests, including Claremont Pie Festival, Los Angeles County Fair and the Arts for Peace Award in Hollywood.

"That’s been our purpose," she said. "Every day we wake up and say, 'How are we going to make a difference?'"

Throughout the pandemic, Knafeh Queens has donated food to health care workers and people experiencing homelessness. Now, a portion of their proceeds will benefit Palestinians and aid agencies Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Islamic Relief. As the world watches what happens in Palestine as Israel strikes Gaza, as the fatalities climb and violence rises in the region, some traditions carry on and unite.

"It’s more than just Knafeh," she said. "We’re able to tell our story. It’s exciting because our parents literally left Palestine with nothing. They left all their family, all their friends, to start a new chapter. They didn’t know the language, my mom didn’t drive. In the village that they grew up in, it was hard to get a college education."

In Palestine, her family's opportunities were limited.

"There were very limited things for my dad to do, so he knew that in order to build a better life for himself and my mom, so he came here and he would sell whatever was popular at the time," she said. "He would sell t-shirts, like Vanilla Ice t-shirts, cassette tapes, until he learned and saved up enough money and opened up his own business."

Now, her mother sees her Knafeh recipe traveling from coast to coast, delivered to customers in New York, New Hampshire, Florida, and throughout the U.S.

And sharing her experiences, and the experiences of her family members helps drive her. She makes her own choices, including wearing a hijab.

"I get to tell my story," Muhammad said. "It liberates me, men listen to me, instead of checking me from my head to toe."

There's a misconception that she is forced to wear her hijab or dress modestly.

"You wear it for God," she said. "There’s no compulsion in Islam. It’s not forced at all."

"I had a guy at Target tell me 'Go home to your country and learn English,'" she said.

But she is home. She was born in Florida, raised in Missouri and moved to California in 2000.

"I’m actually a college graduate, I speak great English," she said. "It's so funny for me because my dad always told me to fight hate with kindness."

Her focus is to change the conversation and start with education.

"I know it always comes from ignorance and that person not knowing," she said. "If I can educate them and tell them the true narrative, the real narrative."

And when the pandemic hit, she stuck with her goal and pivoted. She started creating even more delivery options, encouraging her followers on social media to send friends and family Knafeh to tell them they were missed.

"I remember my dad never panicking over a business idea not working out, having a roadblock," Muhammad said. "I remember my mom and dad saying 'Let’s try this, let’s do this. We’re not going to complain, we’re not going to panic.'"

Just like her parents, she remains positive and resilient.

"I’m just like, 'OK, my parents went through so much, the oppression in Palestine and what they went through is nothing like what I’m going through now and I can work through this.'"

It’s about bringing smiles to people who would have never known about this Palestinian dessert.

"It’s so nice to know that our business is spreading that much joy and love and happiness," she said. "People will message me, 'Oh, I was so depressed the past few weeks and it just made me so happy and brought so much joy.' It’s surreal."

Knafeh Queens offers a variety of sizes and flavors, including the original cheese Knafeh, Nutella, cookie butter, s'mores, pistachio ganache, custard, nuts, no cheese and pumpkin spice.

Visit the website or Instagram @knafehqueens to order Knafeh from Knafeh Queens.

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