Baklava

"Traditionally Greek. Always good. Once baked, the baklava has to stand for 3 hours to overnight to absorb the syrup into its layers. Whereas it is most common to find baklava made entirely with walnuts here in Greece, I prefer a combination with almonds. Sometimes I'll make the baklava using pistachios, or sometimes a 1/2-1/2 mixture of pistachios and almonds. They're all great variations on a delicious theme."
 
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photo by lizzy photo by lizzy
photo by lizzy
photo by SharonB photo by SharonB
photo by Alison M. photo by Alison M.
photo by Anonymous photo by Anonymous
photo by lizzy photo by lizzy
Ready In:
1hr 40mins
Ingredients:
17
Yields:
60 smallish pieces
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ingredients

  • Syrup

  • 2 cups honey (preferably Greek thyme honey, but no biggy if you can't get it. DO use a good quality honey, though)
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 cinnamon sticks (or 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • lemon peel (without pith - 4 inch-long piece)
  • orange peel (without pith - 4 inch-long piece)
  • Pastry

  • 4 cups coarsley ground walnuts (very fresh)
  • 2 cups coarsley ground almonds (make sure the nuts you use are FRESH, very recently purchased)
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 12 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 12 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 14 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter
  • 2 lbs phyllo pastry sheets
  • 1 lb unsalted butter, melted (don't use less, this is what will make your baklava taste exceptional, and it has to be BUTTER!)
  • whole cloves
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directions

  • Make syrup first so that it can come to room temperature: In a small saucepan, combine honey, sugar and water. Bring to a slow boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Add lemon juice, cinnamon sticks and peels and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes, until slightly thickened. Remove peels and cinnamon sticks and allow to come to room temperature before using.
  • Combine walnuts, almonds, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and 3 tablespoons melted butter together in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
  • Place phyllo between sheets of waxed paper and cover with a slightly damp towel to prevent phyllo from drying out. Brush bottom and sides of an 18x12-inch inch pan generously with melted butter.
  • Place 8 phyllo sheets into bottom of pan, brushing each sheet generously with butter. Take an additional 4 sheets of phyllo and place in pan allowing sheets to drape over each of the 4 sides of pan. Brush these with melted butter.
  • Spread 2 cups of nut mixture into pan, distributing evenly over bottom. Fold over the overlapping phyllo sheets brushing each with butter, to envelop the nut mixture.
  • Repeat layering process 2 more times to form 3 nut layers.
  • Top pastry with remaining phyllo dough and generously brush top layer with melted butter. Tuck in the buttered phyllo neatly around.
  • Score through top layers of pastry with a sharp knife making 6 strips lengthwise then cut 10 strips diagonally to form diamond shaped pieces. Stud each diamond-shaped piece (and any odd looking ones near the ends of the pan) in the centre with a whole clove per piece. Pour remaining melted butter over pastry and lightly sprinkle some water on top too (wet your hand under the tap twice and shake this out over the pastry).
  • Bake pastry in a 325°F oven for 1 hour to 75 minutes, until nicely golden-brown. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Carefully spoon cool syrup over seam in pastry. Allow to stand at least 3 hours or overnight. Cut through the scored pieces and serve.
  • Note: The clove studding each piece is not traditionally eaten, it is removed by the person whose piece it is before eating. The clove is there to add its 'perfume' to the piece as it bakes (and it looks pretty, too).

Questions & Replies

  1. Please forgive me, I really don't understand this direction "Take an additional 4 sheets of phyllo and place in pan allowing sheets to drape over each of the 4 sides of pan." I wished this had a picture at this step. Other than this, thank you so much for sharing you receipe.
     
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Reviews

  1. This was quite good, I must say. I subbed the walnuts with poppy seeds, and they still add up to the same amount, just coz I've had it once where they used poppy seeds and it was pretty good. I would probably make the syrup a little more runny, and 3 hours is definitely not enough, over-night is recommended, as we served it after 3 hours and the syrup wasn't right to the bottom yet, but the next day it was much better. Will experiment with it! Note: DON'T preheat your oven until you're up to the last layer as this took us 1 hour just to assemble before putting into the oven!! Simple steps but very time-consuming.
     
  2. This is wonderful. I've actually been using your recipe for about a year now. It was my first time making it then and I got great reviews! A co-worker of mine requests this every potluck (and we have a lot of them!). We've TRADED food for this recipe (she's from the Philippines and makes great lumpia) and now she is asking for it again for our Thanksgiving potluck on Thursday! Thanks so much :)
     
  3. I used this recipe to make Baklava for the first time and it was decadent! The flavors are so rich and meld together wonderfully. It was a lot of work, but I was certainly proud of the result. I would probably scale the recipe down next time because it made a LOT, and might not put quite so many nuts. Thank you for a great recipe to add to my "tried and true" folder :) ~Crystal
     
  4. I have made this twice now, both times to rave reviews. I divided this recipe in half and it makes a perfect 9x13 pan full. The first time my syrup was a little thin and most of it went to the bottom. The second time was wonderfull. Both times I used orange blossom honey which provided a nice citrus kick to the Baklava. My next attempt I will use pistashios because one of my co-workers is alergic to Walnuts.
     
  5. I won't tell you how good this is because there are already 33 other reviews telling you that. I will tell you I made mine in a lasagna pan and didn't reduce or change the recipe at all and it was perfect. I did use more orange and lemon peel because I had tried another baklava that called for orange and I knew I wanted a lot of that flavor. Also,others might want to know that a 1 pound bag of walnuts when ground up, yields just over the 4 cups called for. Same with almonds (1/2 lb = 2 cups). I never thought twice about what to do with the clove on each piece, but my family was completely thrown off by it. So I guess if I was going to serve it for dinner guests I would leave the clove off to avoid any choking or embaressing situations. Thanks evelyn.
     
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Tweaks

  1. I live in a semi-arid climate so I kept a pot of water boiling to humidify the air during the entire process of working with the phyllo. Since I didn’t have a baking pan large enough, I used two that are half the size required by the recipe. I cut all the phyllo in half which fit the pans exactly and, in the end, that made the dough much easier to work with.
     
    • Review photo by SharonB
  2. Used walnuts, pecans, and almonds.
     
  3. This recipe is great as is, but for anyone else who is completely lactose intolerant like me, I will say that I also made this with melted coconut oil instead of butter. Of course butter is better...but I like to be able to eat baklava without getting sick after every piece. There's no way I could make this and then not eat any. When I told my friends it had no butter in it, they didn't believe me. So, it's a workable substitution if you simply cannot have butter, and I think that speaks to the quality of the sauce portion of this recipe, that even without butter it tastes great.
     
  4. Very Good. Everyone enjoyed it. I did not taste it because of allergy to gluten. But please DO NOT USE SALTED BUTTER OR SALTED NUTS!!!! as I did the first time that was inedible. I used almost 3/4's this recipe's syrup for a 9 X 13 inch pan. I used a good local creamy honey, made sure to cut the lemon and orange peels down since the serving changer didn't do it. I used half pistachio nuts, half blanched almonds like the intro. I followed Recipe #369495. I used less allspice in place of nutmeg because we don't consume intoxicants. I used 1 lb phyllo pastry leaves trimmed a little. I placed the cloves on top to bake for the perfume and removed them before presenting since all those to consume this dessert do not know about the Greek tradition. I will make this again. Made for Family Picks ZWT6, Greece/Cyprus region, for my team, The Ya Ya Cookerhood.
     
  5. This was quite good, I must say. I subbed the walnuts with poppy seeds, and they still add up to the same amount, just coz I've had it once where they used poppy seeds and it was pretty good. I would probably make the syrup a little more runny, and 3 hours is definitely not enough, over-night is recommended, as we served it after 3 hours and the syrup wasn't right to the bottom yet, but the next day it was much better. Will experiment with it! Note: DON'T preheat your oven until you're up to the last layer as this took us 1 hour just to assemble before putting into the oven!! Simple steps but very time-consuming.
     

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<style>body { background: url("http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3639/3512121819_f2f1aaf050.jpg?v=0"); background-repeat: repeat-y; }</style> OK, here goes. I live in Athens, Greece. I moved out here many, many years ago from Ottawa, Canada - so I am blessed in having two wonderful heritages! I suffer from compulsive obsessive behaviour with regard to food and my psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea to find a 'society' where many have the same problem and try to find a cure. So far, I've copied a couple of thousand recipes from this site and my psychiatrist has thrown the towel in and refuses to answer the phone when I call. What did I do wrong? Got 3 kids that keep me on the go - 10 and under at this point (2008) - I may not get round to updating this for a few years, so you'll have to do your own maths. I teach English full-time and Greek Cookery part-time. I would like to make the cooking part of it full-time and the English Grammar part of it part-time. That's all for now.
 
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