Baklava

Baklava is a delicious phyllo pastry popular in Middle Eastern countries. Its supposed origins are Turkish, dating to the Byzantine Empire (or even further), though many cultures claim it for their own. Many Greek and Lebanese restaurants do serve this. Baklava is usually layer with crispy phyllo dough alternate with sugary spiced nut mixture, and the whole thing is then soaked in fragrant sweet syrup made with honey, lemon and cinnamon.

The baklava I made is a bit different from the traditional kind. Instead of the layering kind I made it into rolls and didn’t bath it with sugar syrup or honey. I cut down the amount of sugar in the filling and replace it with some dried apricots. Making this is a bit time consuming and handling the tissue paper-thin phyllo dough can be tricky at times as they break easily. But the end results were all worthwhile. You will be rewarded with exotic, flaky, crunchy, sweet and decadent dessert.If you can get phyllo dough do try this out as I am sure you are going to love it as much as we do.

Ingredients:

½ cup toasted almonds
1 cup toasted walnuts
½ cup chopped dried apricots
3 tbsp sugar
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp honey
Zest of one orange
Juice of half orange or more

18 sheets of phyllo dough
1 ½ stick/3/4 cup tbsp of melted butter

1. Place all the ingredients except the phyllo dough and melted butter in the food processor. Run the machine until the mixture is finely chopped, sticky and comes together in a ball. If it is too dry add a bit more orange juice. Set it aside while you prepare the dough.
2. On a dry work surface place 1 sheet of phyllo. Using a pastry brush, lightly cover the entire sheet of phyllo with melted butter. Cover the first sheet with a second sheet of phyllo and brush with melted butter. Continue until there is a stack of 6 sheets of phyllo.

3. Cut the stacked phyllo rectangle into 6 equal pieces and then cut each strip into two. You will get 12 equal pieces all together.  Put about 1 tbsp of filling at one end of the pastry strip and then roll it up. Continue doing the same to the rest of the pastry.

4. Brush each roll with some melted butter and bake in a pre-heated 375 degree F oven until lightly brown.
5. Remove the baklava and let it cool on a wire rack before serving.