11 Steps To The Best Beautiful Baklava

The Best Beautiful Baklava In 11 Simple Steps

Baklava, everyone's new favourite dessert

Learn how to make a simple (if slightly time consuming) deliciously indulgent dessert sure to wow your guests or to make sure that your new years diet can certainly wait until the 1st January.

Hi Everyone, 

Over this year we have spent a good amount of time in the Balkans, trying frantically to see everything and also relax and also find some great food, take some photos, make a small video etc.  All in all a holiday which actually resulted in me being more stressed and considerably poorer.  However, I hear you ask, what on earth is the point in this boring story. Well...

The moral being every cloud has a delicious, sticky, nutty lining. In this case my discovery of Baklava, originating from this region and it's neighbours to the East, and seemingly invented in every sketchy patisserie we walked by in every town, I am yet to find a bad example of this delightful dessert. 

How to:

Enough of my dour ramblings and on to business. 

I found this recipe online and just edited it a little to suit my container size and the nuts I had available. 


Prep time; 60 mins    Cook time; 1 hour 15 mins   Total time;  2 hours 15 mins

Ingredients

2 standard packs of Filo pastry sheets (250g each, you will have some spare but that's just a good excuse for some filo parcels)

600g butter
400g mixed nuts (I used walnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, but any sweet nut will be fine)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
225g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice (or juice of half a lemon)
175ml water
6.5tbsp of honey (also 0.5 cup if you have these measures)
Garnish, either melted chocolate is traditional, but I used icing sugar then some cinnamon.

Preparation:

1. Get your Filo pastry to room temperature, around an hour out of the fridge is fine for this. 

2. Find a deep sided baking dish, about 4/5cm deep should be fine. As close to the size of your filo sheets as possible, this will reduce the amount you have to cut things down and save time.  

3. Once you have your dish. Trim the Filo sheets down to size, if you have lots cover with a damp towel whilst your working so they don't dry out. 

4. Butter the bottom and sides of your dish to prevent sticking. 

Method: 

The honey sauce should be done first to allow time to cool whilst the Baklava bakes. 

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, honey lemon juice and water. Bring to a boil stirring until the sugar is dissolved, reduce to a low heat, simmer for 4 minutes and then remove to cool. 

2. In another pan, melt your butter down gently. 

Now we make the Baklava, you may need a cup of tea as this does take a little while. 

3. Preheat the oven to 160 Celsius 

4. Blitz your mixed nuts in the food processor until coarsely ground, or if you're a glutton for punishment, finely chop them. Stir in the cinnamon. 

5. Place the first 10 sheets of pastry on the bottom of your baking dish, ensuring that you butter between each one. Best bet is to get a basting brush, lay your sheet of Filo in the bottom of the dish, brush over a quick layer of melted butter then lay the next sheet on top. Repeat this until you have 10 layers on to bottom. 

6. Spread around one fifth of the nutty cinnamon mixture on top of the 10th sheet evenly. 

7. Add another 5 sheets of Filo pastry, buttering between each one as before. Then on the 5th sheet add another layer of nut mixture.   

8. Repeat this until you have no nut mixture left. You should have 5 layers of nuts in there. Brush the very top with butter. 

Tip; if you have substantial sized trimmings from making the pastry fit the dish earlier, you can lay these in the centre of the 5 layers instead of a new sheet that way you have more for pastry left over for other recipes. 

9. Cut the Baklava every 4 cm diagonally until you have diamond shapes, this is great, as not only does it look good. This is a heavy dessert, so there are smaller pieces for when you're not quite as peckish. 

10. Bake at 160 Celsius for 1 hour 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown. 

11. Remove from the oven, immediately spoon the cooled syrup evenly over the baklava, this will give a very satisfying sizzling sound as the syrup hits the hot dish underneath. Let the Baklava cool completely uncovered at room temperature.  Leave for as long as you can bare before tucking in. For best results, leave for 1-2 weeks under a tea towel, but in reality, it's fantastic after 4-6 hours. 

Serve with a clean light ice cream or sorbet. Something neutral in flavour. We have had it with a set honey for extra indulgence, but this is certainly time for the smaller pieces mentioned above and then a post dinner walk to use some of the energy up. 

Original unadapted recipe came from Natasha's kitchen. 



Thank you so much for reading, if you have any queries or questions, please leave them below and I will get back to you.  


Please visit James's Kitchen again soon for more great recipes and ideas.