Baklava: A Balkan Specialty

My daughter's birthday was on Tuesday and like any good Bosnian girl, she requested Baklava instead of birthday cake.  This is one dessert that is much easier to make than it appears.  Go ahead: give it a try!  I can guarantee that people will be very impressed and you can keep it a secret that it's actually a cinch to make.

 First of all, gather your ingredients.  You need:

1 pound of unsalted butter, very softened

1 pound of shelled walnuts

1 pound of prepared Phillo Dough that is in the freezer section of many markets.  If it is not in your grocery store, check in small Arab or Greek convenience stores.  I buy mine at a tiny store called "Wow Mart".

Sugar

Cinnamon

Vanilla Extract or Vanilla Sugar

Syrup:

4 cups Sugar

2 cups Water

1/2 cup Honey

3 Tbsp. Lemon Juice (or juice from one lemon)

Process: Make the filling first before opening the phillo dough.  Use your food processor or hand nut grinder or even a knife to chop up the walnuts as fine as you like.  I make them fairly fine.  But, don't over process or you will end up with nutbutter.  Just pulse the machine several times.  Use all the walnuts and about 1/4 cup of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Stir in a teaspoon of vanilla to the chopped nuts, if you wish.

Soften, but do not completely melt the butter.  I always just start out with 1/2 pound of butter, because I rarely use the entire pound.  If you would like to cut the saturated fat a bit, you can always add up to half liquid vegetable oil to the butter without losing the texture or buttery taste of the finished product.

Now open the phillo dough and start working fairly quickly, because the phillo dough will dry out and become more difficult to work with over time.  Many people cover up the dough with a towel after each piece, but I just work quickly.  The first time you may want to recruit a partner so that one person works with the phillo leaves and the other is in charge of spreading the butter.

Take one leaf of phillo and lay it in your pan.  The sheet pan I use is 12" x 17" and that fits the phillo dough perfectly.  If you have a smaller pan, you can cut through all the leaves of phillo to fit your pan.  The small pieces of phillo can be pieced together in the middle sections of the baklava.

Dot the very soft butter on and spread it out using your fingers or a very soft pastry brush.

Never worry about tearing the phillo in places - it will happen and you will never notice it in the final product.

Lay about 6 layers of phillo dough and softened butter.  Try to get the butter over the entire sheet of phillo and do not forget about the edges.

Now spread about 1/4 of the nuts over the phillo dough after you have lightly spread it with butter.

How the nuts are layered in the pastry is a hotly contested topic among Balkan women.  Some people insist that the baklava should have nuts evenly distributed throughout the layers and that's how I do it.  Others strongly argue that real baklava should have one very thick layer of filling with a top layer of thick flaky phillo dough.  It's up to you, but I think the baklava is easier to serve with the many layers of nuts.

Put another layer of phillo dough over the nuts and butter as usual.

Put about three layers of phillo and butter and then add another layer of nuts. Continue until the nuts are all used.  Be sure that you have at least four sheets of phillo dough for the top layer.  Spread a fairly thick layer of butter on the very top.

To make the baklava extra flaky and easier to cut, I refrigerate the baklava before baking for about 30 minutes.

While the baklava is resting, make the syrup using 4 cups of sugar and 2 cups of water.  As you can see, this is a very sweet dessert, thus it is typically served with Turkish coffee.

Boil the water and the sugar for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and wetting down the sides of the pot so that the sugar doesn't crystalize.

Add 1/2 cup of honey, which is optional, but does add a much more complex taste to your baklava.  Add the lemon juice, and if you like, throw in the peel to add some additional flavor. Continue to cook the syrup for another 10 minutes.

The finished syrup is thick, fragrant, and amber colored.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit.

Cut the baklava into diamonds by using a very sharp knife.  First cut diagonal slices about 1 inch apart.

Then cut vertical lines being careful not to tear up your baklava.

Bake for 1 hour, but start checking after 40 minutes because you want your baklava golden, but not burned.

Spoon the syrup evenly over the baklava.  It will seem like you are adding way too much syrup, but have faith: the baklava will drink it all up.

Now for the hard part: wait until the next day to eat it.  It really takes a full night for the baklava to absorb all the syrup and for all the flavors to meld together.  I won't tell if you try some of the edge pieces though.

Baklava always impresses people at parties and it stays fresh for a long time and freezes perfectly.

I can't imagine a more delicious dessert than Baklava.