Few months back, I came across this yummy sweet Greek dish called Baklava thru my friend Chaitra Tejaz. I just fell in love with it instantly. I wanted to share it with you all the joy and taste of her dish. Here it is in all its sweetness.
Ingredients:
- Phyllo Dough Sheet – 16oz (2 roll pack)
- Chopped Walnut – 1 Cup
- Butter – 4 Oz stick (1/2 cup when melted)
- Cinnamon Powder – 1 tsp
- Cinnamon stick – 1-2 small stick (for making syrup)
- Lemon Zest – 1 tsp
- Cardamom – 2 pieces
- Sugar – ½ Cup for Making Syrup
- Sugar – 2-3 tbsp to mix with Walnut
- Water – ½ Cup (should match Sugar measure)
- Honey – ½ Cup
Serves – 12 square pieces
Baking Time – 30 min
Sugar Syrup Prep Time – 20 min
Sugar Syrup Prep Time – 20 min
Preparation:
- Prepare the Sugar syrup by adding the Sugar, water, cardamom, Cinnamon sticks, Lemon zest and honey and bringing it to boil. Simmer down for 10 min until the syrup is slightly thickened. Remove the Cinnamon stick, Cardamom and lemon zest by filtering the syrup(Optional). Let it cool nicely to room temperature.
- Mix the Chopped Walnut, 2-3 tbsp of Sugar, Cinnamon Powder and keep it aside.
- Melt the butter and keep it aside.
- During the below process keep the oven ready by preheating it to 350 ºF.
- Take 1 roll out of the 2 roll pack of Phyllo Dough Sheet. Unwind the sheets and cut them into desired length to fit the baking tray size.
- Apply butter in the Baking tray using a Pastry brush (Let’s call it Buttered Phyllo Sheet)
- Stack 8 layers of Buttered Phyllo Sheets.
- Sprinkle Walnut mix generously (don’t overdo it) over the stacked buttered Phyllo sheet layer.
- Now stack 3 Buttered Phyllo sheets over the Walnut.
- Repeat the process 3-4 times or until you are out of Nuts ( J ).
- Finally stack 8 layers of Buttered Phyllo sheets on the top.
- The final sequence should be (from bottom up) 8 buttered phyllo sheets stack->repeat of (Walnut->3 buttered phyllo sheets stack) until out of nuts->8 butter phyllo sheets stack.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the final Baklava stack into squares/desired shapes. Pierce a clove into each shape to keep and hold the stack together.
- Keep the tray in the baking oven and bake it for 25-30 min @ 350 ºF until it turns golden color and the edges appear crispier.
- Be careful to not burn it.
- Remove the Baklava out of the oven and let it sit for 5 min.
- Pour the syrup over the hot Baklava. You will hear cracking sound and that’s a good sign that it has come out good.
- Let it sit for at-least 2 hours so that the Syrup sinks into the Baklava.
- Now, go grab piece and give it a nice bite and you should feel the taste just sink into the mouth and the aroma of lemon zest. Yummyyyyyyyyyyy…..
- Enjoy the tasty Baklava and share it with friends and family.
Preparation Images: