Easy Baklava Recipe
I had never made Baklava before and thought it would be super hard and time consuming to make - little did I know that it’s actually quite simple and fun (if you have the right phyllo pastry). I bought a package of phyllo pastry at Jelmoli (it was in the freezer but sometimes you can also find them outside of the freezer in the middle eastern section of supermarkets). It’s super important you remove your phyllo from the freezer at least 4 hours before starting to make your Baklava or else the sheets will break).
I decided to make this Baklava with 3 types of nuts (pistachios, hazelnuts and walnuts) but you can really mix and match adding a little more of one and a little less of the other. Some people make their Baklava with only walnuts or only pistachios but I wanted to mix things up and try them all together.
Once you make Baklava at home you will realise just exactly how much honey goes into them (which is great but of course also quite caloric). The good news is this recipe will make you around 24 Baklavas and you can store them outside of the fridge for around 10 days.
Prep Time: 25 Minutes
Cooking Time: 40 Minutes
Ingredients for a lot of baklavas (around 24 pieces)
For the Filling
Phyllo Dough - around 16 oz (450g) - can be a bit more or a bit less don’t worry but it needs to have been outside of the freezer/fridge for at least 4 hours
Pistachios - 8 oz (230g)
Walnuts - 6 oz (170g)
Hazelnuts - 4 oz (113g)
Brown Sugar - ¼ cup (30g)
Ground Cinnamon - 1 or 2 Tbs depending how much you like cinnamon
Butter 2 sticks of unsalted butter (220g) - melted
For the Honey Syrup
Brown Sugar - 2/3 cup (85g)
Honey - 1 cup (340g) - yes, you’ll need a lot of honey
Lemon - juice from half a large lemon
Cold Water - 1 cup (230mL)
Cloves - 4
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350 F (180C).
First we make the nut mixture which is super easy. Peel the pistachios if you didn’t buy already peeled ones and add all the nuts into a food processor. Pulse a few times to chop but do not over pulse (it should not be powder - it’s better to have some bigger pieces here and there). Transfer the nuts to a bowl and add the sugar and cinnamon and mix.
Now we make the honey syrup. Juice one lemon and keep half of the juice (make yourself a refreshing lemon water with the other half). Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and heat them up, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Now add the honey and the whole cloves and mix well. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and let simmer for about 25 minutes. Remove syrup from heat and let cool to lukewarm. Once lukewarm add the lemon juice and remove the whole cloves.
Now we already go into assembling the Baklava - make sure you have melted your butter!
Get a baking pan around 9”x 13”x 2” (22cm x 33 cm x 5cm). Butter the bottom layer with the help of a brush. Now take one sheet of phyllo and put it inside the pan (you can fold the phyllo sheet if it’s too big). Every sheet of phyllo you fold needs to be brushed with butter this is very important. You can trim the phyllo if it’s too big.
Repeat this process until you have used up about ⅓ of the phyllo pastry (phyllo, butter, phyllo, butter), each layer being brushed with the melted butter.
When you are at 1/3 of phyllo it’s time to add the first layer of nuts. Distribute about ½ of the nut mixture evenly over the top layer of phyllo.
Then continue assembling the baklava, one sheet of phyllo pastry at a time using another ⅓ of the phyllo. Again, brush each layer with a bit of the melted butter.
Now distribute the second part of the nut mixture evenly over the top layer of phyllo.
Finish the remaining ⅓ of the phyllo pastry following the same process, laying one folded sheet at a time and brushing each layer with melted butter. Brush the top sheet of phyllo with butter.
Before baking cut the baklava into around 24 pieces.
Now you can bake the baklava for 40 minutes (make sure you check on it after 30 minutes). If the top part is golden and a toothpick comes out clean then it’s ready.
Remove the baklava from the oven and pour the honey syrup on top right away. It will make a yummy sound.
Now your baklava needs to cool (at least one hour) - the more the better really. Baklava is at its best after the second day. As mentioned you can store baklava up to 10 days outside of the fridge (I finished mine within 5 days so that was not an issue)
