Baklava

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I'm late, terribly late... for the Daring Baker's June challenge: Erica, from Erica’s Edibles, invited us all to prepare Baklava from scratch, including a homemade phyllo pastry. I tried first with my phyllo and prepared a  pastilla out of a recipe from Sefarad cuisine (or morocain pastella, which in fact was originally made in Andalusia and then adopted in Morocco cuisine).

But family and professional life get crazy sometimes. Too many happenings -happy happenings- along with those not-so-easy days in which an unexpected call from the school  takes you and a child of yours to the hospital urgency services... That's life!

But I did it, I prepared a 2 kilos and a half sheet of baklava, which will not last a week in the fridge, including donations to friends.

Baklava has long been one of our "addictions". We tasted it in Berlin, where sweet shops in Kreuzberg sell their exquisite Baklava bites. I have even flown from Berlin to Seville (Spain) with a 2 kg box full of Baklava in my hand luggage (and all that honey in my briefcase, oh, oh, oh).

And finally they started selling Baklava in town, as migrants poppulations are growing and we move toward the recovery of our andalusian and arab traditions.

And this is my recipe.

Dough ingredients

425 gr. pastry flour or 400 gr. all-purpose flour+1 teaspoon whitewine or cider vinegar

210 ml. water

60 ml. olive oil

Dough preparation

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough till soft and elastic. Let it rest in a covered container for at least 2 hours.

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Filling ingredients

200 gr. almonds

200 gr. pistacchios

200 gr. walnuts

200 gr. sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Filling preparation

Grind all the nuts. Mix them and add the sugar and cinnamon. Mix well.

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Syrup ingredients

300 gr. sugar

300 gr. honey

300 ml water

2 cinnamon sticks

1 lemon rind

6 cloves

25 ml. orange-flour water

Syrup preparation

Mix the sugar, honey and water in a pan. Add the cinnamon sticks, the colves and the lemon rind. Let it boil slowly for 5 minutes. Keep it really hot, simmering. Before using, in the last minute, add the orange-flour water and filter in a jar.

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Ingredients for assembling

200 gr. clarified butter

Assembling Baklava

Prepare a 24x32 cms pan dressing it with baking paper.

Divide the dough in 40 gr. pices. You will get 15 pieces. Roll every 40 gr. piece into a sheet. You should be able to read through your sheet. Try to keep it into a rectagle covering your pan.

Lay every sheet as you roll it on your pan, painting it with the clarified  butter. After you have 5 buttered layers cover with half the nut mixture. Press the nuts with a small rolling pn or the botton of a glass, to make a consistent layer.

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Roll 5 more sheets, buttering and laying them on top of the nut layer.

Cover with the rest of the nut mixture. Press them with a small rollin pin or the botton of a glass, to give consistency to the layer.

Roll the final 5 sheets, layering and buttering them, including the final one.

Put the pan in the fridge at least for half an hour (one ohour is better). The cooler the buttered filo, the crispiest it will turn when baking. While cooling, heat your oven to 180º.

Cut with a sharp knife your blakava into rectangles or diamonds. Bake your pan of Baklava one hour at 180º. It will brown the last 20 minutes. If it is getting too dark, cover with aluminium foil.

When finished, take out of the oven and pour the syrup on the baklava. The syrup must be very hot, so care must be taken not to get burnt with any syrup drop.

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Let the baklava sit overnight ar it cools. At the beginning, it will look as if the syrup was too much. Don't bother, the day after you will find it absorbed the liquid. You can keep it in the fridge for a long period. At home it was al least for a week. But probably it won't last so long, even if you think you get more that 2,5 kilos baklava with this recipe. It is really worthy the time spent. It is addictive, really.