Home
|Recipes|

Baklava.

This is an expensive treat. Make it as a birthday present for a loved one. It takes time, it isn’t cheap, but it is middle eastern throughout, succulent, aromatic, and quite delicious. You can only cope with one or two bits at a time, so you will be remembered through your present for quite a while! It is what I consider as the classic ‘sweetmeat’ to be nibbled with a cup of very strong coffee, after a posh-nosh type meal. This is Gary Dixon’s recipe, but I’ve no idea where he got it from.

Ingredients:

2 cups , 500 ml, chopped walnuts
1 cup, 250 ml caster sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon orange flower water, (from an exotic food shop)
300 g Ghee, (clarified butter). If you make your own, or use unclarified butter, make sure that it is UNsalted….
1 x 375 gm packet of Fillo pastry
1 quantity of syrup.

To make Syrup:

1 cup, 250 ml Water and 2 cups, 500 ml, sugar, over a moderate heat until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 10 minutes without stirring. Remove from the heat, and stir in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Method

Mix the walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, orange flower water and ¼ cup, (60 ml) ghee, and set aside.
Grease a 18 x 28 cm baking pan with Ghee. Lay the first piece of filo pastry on the base, brush with ghee, and fold the extras in from over the edge, and brush those with ghee. Lay the next sheet of filo in the tin, with the opposite sides hanging over the edge, and brush with ghee, fold in, and brush again. Repeat this until half the filo has been used. Spread the walnut mix over the filo pastry, and then continue layering with the remainder of the filo, brushed with ghee, until it is all used. Use a sharp knife to cut the baklava into diamond lozenge shapes before baking. Bake at 180 deg C for 45 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, pour the syrup over the baklava, enjoying the amazing sound it makes. Cool before giving .

|Recipes| | Home|