Striking Popping Candy in Dubai Chocolate: A Guide for UAE Chocolatiers

The bar everyone copied was made in Dubai by FIX Dessert Chocolatier: a thick milk chocolate shell over a pistachio and kunafa filling, sold in limited daily slots. It grew slowly until a food creator posted a video of herself eating it in December 2023, and the sound of the kunafa crunch did the rest. Within months it had been reviewed, copied and recreated at home across social media (Khaleej Times, July 2024).

The lesson for anyone making bars in the UAE is not pistachio. It's that texture and sound now sell chocolate. Kunafa gives a crunch. Popping candy gives a crackle that keeps going for several seconds after the bite, and it reads on camera without any editing. That's why it belongs in the same conversation as the Dubai bar, as the next inclusion rather than a replacement for it.

Popping candy is a hard sugar candy with bubbles of pressurised carbon dioxide trapped inside. When the sugar dissolves on the tongue the gas escapes, and that's the pop. The original General Foods patent on fat-coated popping candy spells out the weakness: moisture turns the candy into a soft, sticky matrix that rapidly lets the gas out, so the granules must be isolated from any source of free water, and a coating of fat works because it forms a barrier that stops water reaching the candy (US patent 4,275,083).

Chocolate is that fat barrier. Tempered chocolate, compound coating and cocoa butter all hold almost no free water, so popping candy folded into them keeps its crackle. Anything wet does the opposite. For a chocolatier the rule is short: popping candy goes in the fat phase, never in the water phase.

A practical layout that keeps the candy dry: shell first, then the wet filling, then a thin chocolate layer carrying the popping candy, then the back of the bar. The chocolate between the filling and the candy is what protects it. If you simply scatter candy on top of the kunafa paste and close the bar, the syrup finds it.

1. Mould the shell and let it set.
2. Pipe the pistachio and kunafa filling, leaving room for two more layers.
3. Spread a thin layer of tempered chocolate over the filling and let it firm up.
4. Stir popping candy into the chocolate for the back of the bar at working temperature, close the bar at once, and let it set.

On dose, start with one 1.5g pouch per 100g of chocolate for the back layer, taste, and adjust. Striking packs are sold as 10 pouches of 1.5g in a 15g pack, and that format is useful here. You open one pouch at a time and the other nine stay sealed, which is the simplest moisture control there is.

Most of the year the air outside a Dubai kitchen is wet enough to soften open popping candy within the hour. A few habits keep the crackle in the bar:

• Open pouches at the bench, not in the store room, and only as many as the batch needs.
• Work in the air-conditioned room where you temper, and keep the candy away from steam, sinks and the kunafa syrup station.
• Close moulded bars immediately after the candy goes in. The candy is exposed only while the chocolate is open.
• Don't chill finished bars uncovered. Condensation on a cold bar is free water on the surface.
• Store unopened packs as the label says: away from direct sunlight, in a cool, dry place.

If a trial bar loses its pop after a day, the leak is almost always moisture from the filling. Thicken the protective chocolate layer before you change anything else.

Striking Popping Candy comes in strawberry, blueberry, green apple and watermelon as 15g packs on the store, with the blueberry and watermelon also sold by the carton of 48 packs. The 10-pouch range in the photos also includes cola and Electric Shock; ask the wholesale team about those two.

• Strawberry with white chocolate or a pistachio filling, where the pink colour shows.
• Blueberry with dark chocolate, where its blue crystals stand out on a bark.
• Green apple with milk chocolate and a caramel note in the shell, not in the caramel itself.
• Watermelon for summer bars and children's lines.
• Cola and Electric Shock for a novelty line aimed at teenagers, which is the group that buys popping candy on its own.

One labelling note. The blueberry pack lists sugar, corn syrup, lactose (a milk derivative), acidity regulator E296, artificial flavour, carbon dioxide E290 and colour E133 on the product page, so carry the pouch's ingredient list into your own bar's label, flavour by flavour. All Striking popping candy sold here is halal certified.

Two formats. For development and small runs, order 15g packs singly from the Striking popping candy collection. For production, the blueberry carton of 48 packs and the watermelon carton of 48 packs are the wholesale units, and the rest of the trade range is in the Striking wholesale collection. Prices are on the product pages. Pay online or by transfer to our company bank account; delivery across the UAE is free on orders above AED 300.

If you're new to the product, our article on how popping candy works covers the science in more depth, and the Striking shop guide covers the lollipops and retail formats.

Yes. Chocolate holds almost no free water, so the candy keeps its gas. The pop is lost only when the candy meets moisture, from a wet filling, condensation or humid air.

Not in the filling itself if it carries syrup or any water. Put it in a chocolate layer above the filling, or in the back of the bar.

Yes, it's halal certified, and Seoul Oasis is the official authorised distributor in the UAE.

Each 15g pack holds 10 pouches of 1.5g. Wholesale cartons hold 48 packs.

Only what the label says: away from direct sunlight, in a cool, dry place, and sealed until you use it.

Ready to test a popping layer in your next bar? Start with a few 15g packs from the Striking popping candy collection, and move to cartons of 48 once the recipe is fixed.