Baklava: 1, Miss EU: 0

The results are in. It may somewhat look the part but this is hands down the worst Baklava I’ve ever tasted. Now where did it all go wrong?

We’ll start with the recipe I used and go from there.

WARNING: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ATTEMPT THIS RECIPE – IT’S NASTY!!!

• 1 packet of phyllo pastry
• 175g Unsalted Butter
• 400g Pistachio nuts finely chopped
• 100g Walnuts finely chopped
• 300g Caster Sugar
• 300ml Water
• Juice of 1 lemon

- Preheat oven to 150C
- Defrost pastry and cut to shape of baking tin
- Melt butter
- Lightly grease baking tin
- Place a sheet of pastry on the bottom of tin and baste with butter
- Continue this for roughly 5 layers
- Cover the top layer with about ½ the chopped nuts
- Place another layer on top of the nuts
- Baste with butter and continue for another few layers
- Cover the next top layer with almost all the remaining chopped nuts (keeping a few for decorating at the end)
- Place another 4 or 5 basted layers of pastry above this and don’t forget to baste the top layer.
- Bake in oven for ¾ - 1 hour until slightly golden
- In the mean time make the syrup by combining the sugar water and lemon juice in a pan on a medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the syrup looks clear
- Allow the syrup to cool
- When the baklava is ready, remove from oven and chop in to whatever shapes you wish
- Pour the syrup over the hot baklava
- Allow to cool and soak up the syrup for about 2 hours before serving
- When cooled, sprinkle with remaining chopped nuts

Well the final result tasted really, really bad. This isn’t just a case of me trying to recreate some of the fantastic Baklava I had in Melbourne, oh no, this is unfortunately quite inedible. The Syrup was a huge downfall of this sweet, it tasted very artificial and the juice of a whole lemon was far too much. I think I used too much syrup as it was quite soggy also. But the syrup was not the only problem with this recipe; something just didn’t taste right about the whole thing. Perhaps it needed more butter and I think the layering of 4-5 sheets of pastry and only 2 layers of nuts was all wrong. Some recipes include cinnamon and sugar with the nuts so I think I may try this next time. Also many recipes use honey in the syrup which is definitely going to be included in my next attempt.

It’ll be a while before I try to make it again. I don’t think I can even look at a piece of baklava without my stomach turning.

So for the time being, it’s game on baklava!