Baklava; 1, Miss. E.U.; 1 Million!!!!

Extremely happy to finally cross this one off my list!!!

At last I have gotten the hang of making Baklava. It has been haunting me ever since the last disaster, but having been invited to a Greek dinner party a few weeks ago, I was encouraged to try again, and try again I did…this time with results!!

Similarly to many of the sweets on this list, I found simplicity is the key to a good Baklava. Well, simplicity and also good organisation. There are relatively few ingredients required for Baklava, but you must work quickly so as to ensure the pastry does not dry out.

There are many shapes that Baklava can be made in to and as you can see from the photos, I made two. Surprisingly I found the rolled up Baklava easier to make, and maybe it’s just me but I think they look more impressive.

It is absolutely imperative to taste the sugar syrup and make sure it is pleasant before using it. You want it to taste sweet and delicious, but not sickeningly toothache sweet. I think this may have been one of the biggest problems with my previous attempt.

Ok, these are really pretty good and were a hit at the dinner party I brought them to. And if I may toot my own horn...I was told they were the best Baklava one of the guests had tasted outside of Istanbul!!

Here’s how I made them, and this recipe makes a large batch of the square or diamond shaped Baklava and the remainder of the ingredients are used to make the rolled up Baklava.

• 1 packet phyllo pastry.
• 300 g Unsalted butter
• 100 g Walnuts, ground.
• 300 g Almonds, ground.
• 150 g Pistachios, ground.
• 500 g Honey (experiment with different types of honey!).
• 500 ml Water.
• 50 g Sugar (Caster or Granulated).
• 1 Tablespoon mixed spice.
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon.
• Rosewater/Orange Essence or Oil (Optional).

- Remove the pastry from the fridge or freezer and ensure if it was frozen that it is completely defrosted. Do not remove or open the packet or it will dry out.
- Preheat the oven to 150 C.
- Mix together the ground Almonds, Walnuts and about half of the Pistachios, leaving the rest of the pistachios for decoration.
- Add the sugar, Cinnamon, and Mixed Spice to the ground nuts and combine.
- Melt the butter and allow to cool slightly.
- Lightly brush the entire brownie pan with the melted butter.
- At this stage, ensure you have everything you will need at hand and ready to start making the layers of Baklava.
- Take the defrosted pastry out of its packet and roll it all out flat on a flat surface.
- Place your pan on top of the pastry and cut the pastry out to size. You may get several cuts from the pastry, depending on how large your pan is.
- Put all the remaining pastry back in the packet and return to fridge.
- You may cover the pastry that you are going to work with now with a damp tea towel or just work quickly.
- Lightly brush the top side of a layer of pastry with the melted butter.
- Place this in the pan, butter side up.
- Continue this for about ten layers.
- Cover this layer with about a third of the chopped nuts mixture, making sure the pastry is completely covered.
- Brush another layer of pastry and place this butter side up on top of the chopped nuts.
- Continue this until it is has about five layers of pastry on top of the nuts.
- Cover again with about a third of the nuts.
- Butter and layer another 4 or five layers of pastry on top of the nuts.
- Cut the entire dish with a very sharp or serrated knife in to the shape you would like – diamonds, squares etc.
- With the remainder of the ingredients, you can make the rolled Baklava.
- Lightly butter a deep baking tray or roasting tin.
- Butter a layer of the remaining pastry .
- Butter another layer and place it on top of the first layer.
- Place a two centimetre wide, one centimetre high layer of the chopped nuts about three centimetres away from the edge of the pastry.
- Roll the pastry up in to a roll and place on to the buttered pan.
- Continue this until all of the remaining ingredients are used up.
- If you wish, cut the rolls to the size you would like them to be.
- Place the two trays in the oven and bake until completely golden (about one hour).
- Combine the honey and water in a saucepan.
- If you like you can flavour it with a tablespoon of rosewater or a few drops of orange oil.
- Gradually heat until the honey and water is completely combined.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
- When the Baklava is golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool only slightly for about 3 minutes.
- Pour the honey syrup over the hot Baklava, ladle by ladle. Depending on how large your dish is, about two and a half ladles should be ample for the deep dish pan and about one ladle shout be enough for the rolls.
- Sprinkle the top of each piece of Baklava with a little bit of ground pistachios.
- Leave the Baklava for several hours whilst it absorbs the Sugar syrup.
- Once the sugar syrup has been absorbed, it will be ready to eat!
- Enjoy and impress your friends!!

12 down, 15 to go....