Classic Baklava

  • Classic Baklava

    The Greeks knew what they were doing.

    In addition to a building a couple of buildings that some could call architecturally significant, they created the Greek salad (the real Greek salad, not the North Americanized version with lettuce that you get in a mall food court), and most important of all, they created baklava.  (I assume it was the Greeks, and I’m too lazy to check Wikipedia right now to verify, so go with it.)

    I always knew the day would come when I would layer sheet upon sheet of glorious phyllo dough with layer upon layer of melted butter.  And any time you get gooey innards going in a dessert, you have my heart (like the Gooey Nut Bars, or like the Sweet German Chocolate Cake.  And obviously the tried and true Gooey Magic Cookie Bars.).  This recipe isn’t challenging from a skill perspective but it will tax your patience.  It takes a bit of time and some finicky steps- but nothing you won’t feel isn’t worth it in the end.  (Wait- that’s a double-negative- just to be clear, my point is that it’s worth the annoyance because this recipe tastes freaking amazing.  Was that clear?)

    So start chopping, toasting, melting, stirring, thawing, layering, brushing, sprinkling, more layering and bushing and sprinkling, and more layering and brushing.  Then baking.  Then cooling and cutting and inhaling.  Thank you, Greeks.  (Oh- also thank you for Greek yogurt, which is pretty great in baking as well.)

    Adapted from the epicurious recipe…

    SYRUP:
    2 cups sugar
    1 cup honey
    1 1/2 cups water
    2 tablespoons lemon juice
    2 tablespoons light corn syrup
    1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
    1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
    NUT FILLING:
    4 cups (1 pound, to be exact) pistachios and walnuts, finely chopped or coarsely ground*
    1/4 cup sugar
    1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
    1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
    PHYLLO:
    1 pound (about 24 sheets) phyllo dough
    1 cup (2 sticks) melted butter (salted)
    1. SYRUP:  In a medium sauce pan over low heat, stir the sugar, water, lemon juice, corn syrup, cinnamon and cardamom until the sugar dissolves (about 5 minutes).  Increase the heat to medium and cook until the mixture is slightly syrupy (about 5 minutes, or 225° on a candy thermometer; do not stir during this phase).  Allow to cool in pan while you prepare filling & bottom layer of phyllo.
    2. FILLING:  Finely chop nuts (or pulse in a food processor to make like 100% easier), and toast in preheating oven for 8 minutes or so (until fragrant in a nutty way and barely toasted).  In a large bowl, combine nuts with sugar, cinnamon and cloves.
    3. Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease a 9 x 13″ baking pan and set aside.
    4. PHYLLO ASSEMBLY**:  In a small bowl, melt butter in microwave.  Cut your long, thawed rectangle stack of phyllo layers in half so both stacks end up a perfect 9 x 13″ shape to fit in your prepared pan.  Place a sheet of phyllo in the bottom of the pan and lightly brush with butter.  Repeat with 7 more sheets.  Spread with half of the nut filling.  Top with 8 more sheets, brushing each with butter.  Spread with the remaining half of the nut filling and end with a top layer of 8 sheets, continuing to brush each with butter.  Butter the top layer of the baklava, too.
    5. Using a sharp knife, cut the baklava into pieces through the top layer of pastry only.  (I made diamond shapes by cutting along the long side of the rectangle first, to make 6 rows or so, then cut diagonally across the rows.  You can just cut into little squares if you prefer less thinking.)
    6. Sprinkle the top of the phyllo masterpiece with a little bit of cold water just before placing the pan in the oven (epicurious says it’s to “inhibit the pastry from curling”).  Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300° and bake until golden brown, about 15 additional minutes.
    7. Cut through the scored lines.  Drizzle the cooled syrup slowly over the hot baklava and allow to cool for at least 4 hours.

    Tips:

    •  *Nut options: I like half and half of pistachios and walnuts, but you can use blanched almonds instead or as well if you’d like.  I use unsalted nuts because the salted butter is gloriously salty as it is.
    • **Phyllo notes:  you’ll want to thaw your frozen package overnight in the fridge.  Make sure that you cover the batch of thawed phyllo with a slightly damp dish cloth (like this one!) or paper towels while you’re working with it, so the layers don’t dry out and crack all to hell on you.  You can wrap up the unused phyllo sheets and freeze again, FYI.
    • Some baklava recipes don’t use honey, but I think it’s essential.  Honey smells gross when it’s being baked, FYI.  Your kitchen will smell stenchy when you’re making the syrup, FYI.  Sorry.  But the finished product is excellente.  (Try to use a good quality honey; you’ll want to like the taste of it before you bake with it or you won’t like it after it’s baklava-ed up. It’s like cooking with wine- they say to use a good wine that you’d want to drink, because cooking with it doesn’t make a bad wine good.)
    • Vegan?  Sorry, life must be hard.  You can use vegetable oil instead of the butter in between the phyllo layers (just add a teaspoon of salt to the filling when you combine the nuts and spices).  The good news is that most phyllo doughs are vegan anyways, so think of all the possibilities!
    • Lazy?  Skip the middle layer of phyllo and use 3 cups of nuts in total instead of 4.  And skip the step of toasting the nuts.  Time saved, just like that (and a few calories per piece, too, unless you just eat MORE of the rip-off version).
    • Be prepared for people to come out of the woodwork for this recipe.  Baklava is kind of a love it or hate it kind of thing, or so I always thought.  The people who like baklava will love this recipe.  Be prepared to share this link with them, partner.

     

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    September 18th, 2013 | More Sweets Please | No Comments | Tags: , ,

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