Baklava Recipe

Baklava is one of the most fun dessert to make. Traditionally it’s made at home with lots of nuts, butter and love. It has layers and layers of filo pastry sheets with nutty adventure. The crisp bites with nut and syrup is to die for. My first bite to Baklava was very very special; I was happy and angry at the same time maybe. It gave me ample joy and at the same time i was angry for not trying it before. Well, there’s a first time for everything. Here's the link for my recipe video

Unsalted Butter - 250gm

Filo pastry sheets - 30

Pistachios - 200gm

Walnuts - 200gm

Sugar - 1 Cup

Water - ¾ Cup

Honey - ½ Cup

Lemon juice - 2 TBSP

Cinnamon Powder - 1 tsp (Optional)

In a pan take sugar, water, honey and lemon juice, stir to mix and then let syrup come to boil. Then let it simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. Set it aside to cool down slightly and in the meantime lets prepare few more things.

In a food processor take pistachios and walnuts. Add cinnamon to it and pulse it few times. Make sure you don't grind it to powder, it should be coarse.

Melt butter in a pot and keep a brush handy. Take a pan for laying out filo sheets. Open filo sheet packets and put them in a tray or something. Cut sheets according to the size of your pan. I have used a square pan and I have laid sheets underneath the pan to get exact measurement. After sheets are cut, keep them under the damp cloth.

Next start laying sheet on the pan one by one and every time you put a sheet in the pan, apply melted butter with the help of a brush. Follow this step until you have 10 sheets. After that, put a layer of nuts to cover the top sheet.

Next put 6 more sheets with butter brush after each sheet and once all 6 sheets are done, fill up the layer with nut mixture.
Again 6 more sheets and nut mixture.

Finally lay 8 sheets on top with butter brush to cover the top. Now, using a knife cut the whole thing. A diamond shape cut is most popular.

Bake in 325F pre-heated oven for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Once done, take out from oven and let it rest for 2-3 minutes. Then add sugar syrup on it. The splattering sound is a result of pouring nearly cold syrup on hot Baklava. While pouring syrup, it's a good idea to pour it once from top to cover the whole top area. Most syrup should go through the cuts so that it reaches to the very last sheet beneath.

Let Baklava set for 4-6 hours and then garnish with some ground pistachio and enjoy without guilt!!

THANK YOU.