Baklava

I interrupt my posts from Everyday Food:  Great Food Fast from the Kitchens of Martha Stewart Living to bring you this post on Baklava.

I first tried Baklava around the holidays.  One of my mom's coworkers wife made Baklava and it was heavenly! The other weekend I came across a recipe for Baklava on Pinterest.  When I mentioned this to Pat, he was very intrigued and was hoping I would try out this recipe sooner rather than later.

The recipe I used came from Natasha's Kitchen.  After reading over the post on Natasha's Kitchen, I thought that Baklava looked simple to make.  As it turns out, Baklava was very simple to make; it did, however, take a while (about an hour and a half to assemble) and some patience.

Following the recipe from Natasha's Kitchen, here's what you'll need:

1 (16 oz) pkg Phyllo dough, thawed 
2 sticks melted butter
4 C walnuts, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 C granulated sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup honey



Natasha's Kitchen has a great step by step post about how to make the Baklava.  Here are my suggestions:  thaw the Phyllo dough in your fridge overnight so you are ready to begin in the morning.  You will want to do this in the morning because it takes about an hour and a half to prepare, another hour and a half to bake, and several hours to cool.   (Although, I can attest to the fact it can be eaten after about 2 hours).  

The original post said to make the sauce first, but I decided to get working on the assembly.  I started by chopping the walnuts in my food processor and adding the cinnamon.  


Then, you layer the thawed Phyllo dough by placing one sheet of Phyllo dough, then smearing it with melted butter.  For the first set of dough, you use 10 sheets of dough.  Next, sprinkle about 3/4 C of the walnuts and cinnamon to coat the dough.  Continue with 5 butter/ Phyllo dough layers, and more nuts.  Repeat 3 more times.  End with ten more layers of butter/ Phyllo dough.  Before you put the Baklava in the oven, you cut the it into pieces.  

Bake at 325 for about an hour and a half.  After you put the Baklava in the oven, you need to make the syrupy sauce.  Heat the sugar, lemon juice, water, and honey on the stove for until boiling.  Yes, as Pat said, "You need to add sugar to the honey?!" Then simmer until the sugar dissolves.  Remove it from heat to allow it to cool.

Once the Baklava is golden brown, remove it from the oven and pour the sugariness on top!  There should be a nice sizzling sound.  I, then, topped mine with some more of the crushed walnut and cinnamon mixture.

Allow it to cool and enjoy!  My non-chocolate loving husband devoured 3/4 of the pan in 5 days.  He is ready for more!

This was not as sweet as the Baklava I originally tried.  I think you could make more syrup to pour over the top.  I also should have melted more butter.  The top layer was a bit flaky and not as cohesive as the other layers.  Next time, I would probably melt 2 1/2 sticks of butter.  The only annoying part of this process was putting the first sheet of Phyllo dough down after the nut layer.  This layer wanted to shift around when I was spreading on the melted butter.  You will probably need to trim your Phyllo dough to fit your pan.  I was about to cut half of the dough at a time with my kitchen scissors.  This recipe is definitely a keeper and definitely something that you can make and enjoy too!