This week’s recipe was a special request from my lovely mother. She wanted me to make my Greek Baklava recipe. Simple enough for me. Let’s do it!
Greek Baklava Recipe: The Phyllo Dough
The hardest part of this recipe is dealing with the phyllo dough. First of all what is it? Phyllo dough are sheets of extremely thin dough. If you think about how puff pastry is many sheets of dough, layered with butter to create a thicker dough, phyllo dough would be all those sheets individually. And because this dough is so thin, it rips super easy and dries out even easier. So it’s best to keep a damp paper towel on them at all times. Also because they tear so easily it is best to dab the butter on the sheets rather than brushing and if you have to brush, brush super gently.
As always, I try to keep these short and sweet and only explain what I think is necessary but if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to put in the comments.
Baklava
A sugury, nut mixture layored between flaky phyllo dough and coated a a honey, sticky coating.
Ingredients
Baklava
- 1 Package of Phyllo Dough
- 1 Cup of Pecans
- 1 Cup of Walnuts
- 1 cup of Granulated Sugar
- 1 Tsp of Cinnamon
- 1 Lb of Unsalted Butter
Sauce
- 1 Cup of Water
- 1 Cup of Honey
- 1 Cup of Granulated Sugar
- 5 Strips of Lemon Zest
- 2 Cinnamon SticksÂ
Instructions
Sauce
- With a vegitable pealer, peal 5 strips of zest off of a lemon. Make sure to not peal down to the white part. Just the yelow. The white part is bitter
- Add water, honey and sugar to a small saucepot and boil until the sugar dissolves and you get a consistancy that is much like maple syrup.
- Turn off the heat and add in the lemon zest and the cinnamon sticks.
- Cover the pot and let it cool for about an hour.
Baklava
- Place the walnuts in a food processor and pulse until you get fine pieces of nuts with some bigger chunks mixed in, not a dust. Add them to a medium bowl.
- Place the pecans in a food processor and pulse until you get a fine mixture of nuts with bigger chunks mixed in, not a dust. Add them to the same medium bowl.
- Add the cinnamon and granulated sugar to the nuts and mix until everything is combined.
- Melt the butter in 30 second intervals until fully melted.
- Trim the thawed phyllo dough to fit your cassarole dish. Drape a damp paper towel over the trimmed dough.
- Layor 8 sheets of phyllo dough into the dish with butter in between. Try not to brush the dough with the butter and just dot it on because brushing the dough may cause it to wrip.
- Add a third of the filling in an even layor on top of the phyllo, followed by 6 layors of buttered phyllo, then filling, then another 6, then filling, then another 6, then filling, then 8 layors of buttered phyllo.
- Top the last layor with more melted butter. and chill the baklava in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Once the Baklava is chilled, cut into a diamond pattern. Cut the Baklava into 4 pieces the long way. Then make slices diagonally.
- Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
- While still hot, pour the cooled syrup over the baklava. You want enough syrup so that it reaches half way up the sides of the baklava.
- Leave to set and for the syrup to absorb for 6 hours or overnight.
- Cut the baklava up into the slices that were already started and enjoy.
If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below, message me on instagram, facebook or leave me an email.