Recipes for a Middle Eastern Feast: Baklava

No feast would be complete without dessert, and for many Middle Eastern feasts, this means baklava.  It is probably the most well-known of the many dessert options, and the ingredients are inexpensive and widely available.  One of the appeals for me of serving baklava on special occasions is that it is such a unique dessert.  Obviously, it is not a cake, pie, or cookie.  It also does not fall into the category of "frozen dessert."  It is a filled pastry, but it is a completely different creature from a creme puff or chocolate-filled puff pastry.  It takes less than an hour of hands-on time to make at home, and like many Middle Eastern dishes, it can be made the day before the event.  You can also purchase baklava in many bakeries and grocery stores.

For years, that's exactly what I did.  I purchased my baklava along with my pitas and hummus to go along with the other dishes that I was making.  Phyllo dough scared me, and the dessert looked complicated and time consuming to make.  Moving to a small town a few years ago forced me to change my opinion.  The only baklava here is in the fancy pastry section of the local bakery and costs as much for two tiny pieces as a whole tray of it in any other place that we lived.  So I rolled up my sleeves, looked up half a dozen recipes, and went to work figuring it out.

Making baklava requires three things:  layered phyllo dough, a nut/sugar/spice mixture for the filling, and a syrup.  That's it.  The mental hurdle for me was the phyllo dough.  It's fragile.  Bleh.

As I blogged about previously, if you want to make fabulous dishes out of phyllo dough you have to wrap your head around two ideas.  First:  phyllo dough is going to tear and that's okay.  Second--it's going to wrinkle.  Smoothing it out without tearing it is really not an option.  And that's also okay.  If you can get over those two things, you are 90% done and making baklava will be a snap.

Get out the phyllo dough in the morning of the day that you are going to use it and bring it to room temperature.  (Many recipes argue against this, telling you to let it thaw in the refrigerator, but I've found that it seems to create more glued together spots when you do that.)  It can actually sit on your counter for hours, if you have to go to work or you have other appointments.  It will be ready to use when you are ready to bake.  

Phyllo dough will dry out rapidly--rather like a tortilla might around the edges, but much faster.  Many recipes advocate keeping the phyllo dough covered with plastic or a damp cloth to prevent this.  I've found that for me, it only impedes my ability to work quickly.  I just unroll one roll at a time and work steadily.  The last few sheets are a little dried out by the time I get to them, but that's fine. 

Baklava can not only be made ahead of time, it can be made up to three days in advance.  It should be stored in an airtight container or covered tightly with plastic wrap.  It should also be stored at room temperature.  We discovered that the hard way, when one of my children was trying to be helpful and put food away, that refrigeration causes the sugar/honey to crystallize between the layers of pastry.  It was still delicious, but grainy.  Storing it at room temperature is not only an option, it's the only option. 

One more thing about making baklava--the magic formula is hot pastry, cool syrup.  Warm or hot syrup will hurt the crispy, flaky texture of the baked phyllo, so the syrup needs to be cooled off before pouring over the pastry.  A hot pastry, on the other hand, absorbs the syrup better.  Hot pastry, cool syrup.  Got it?

Have fun!

Baklava    -- Yield:  One 9x13" pan of pastries
1 16 oz. (1 lb) package phyllo dough at room temperature
1 1/2 cups butter, melted

Filling
3 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts (using a food processor or nut chopper really helps.  You want them very finely chopped, but not pulverized into nut flour.)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2  tsp ground cardamon
1/3 cup sugar       

Syrup
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups + 2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 of a lemon, peel only

 Preheat the oven to 350F, and then start by mixing together the ingredients for the filling in a bowl.  Set aside.  Melt the butter and get out a pastry brush.

Unroll half of the phyllo dough (it usually comes in two rolls in a one pound box).  You will be using all but four sheets of this roll for the bottom layer.  Gently lift one sheet and lay it across the bottom of a 9x13" pan.  Brush it lightly with butter.  (You can see that it's a bit wrinkled in the above photo.  And that's okay!)  Add another sheet of phyllo and brush it with butter.  Repeat until you have used all but four sheets of this roll. 

Now you are going to create an envelope for the filling, so that the nuts won't sit up next to the metal pan and burn in the oven.  Take two of the last four sheets of phyllo dough and put them in the pan such that half of the dough is in the pan and the other half drapes out over the edge of the pan, as shown.  The two sheets can touch in the middle, but it's not necessary to have them overlap.  Brush the section of the sheet that is in the pan with butter.  Repeat with the remaining two sheets, draping them over the opposite edges of the pan and brushing the inside section with butter.  Pour in the nut mixture and cover it with the phyllo by folding in the edges of the four sheets that are hanging over the edge of the pan.  Brush the top of the envelope that you have created with butter.  Continue layering the remaining sheets of phyllo dough in the other roll from the box, brushing each one lightly with butter before adding the next.  Carefully arrange the final sheet as flat as possible and then use the edge of your brush or a thin spatula to tuck any stray phyllo down along the edges.  Brush the top one last time with butter.

Cover the top of the baklava with a sheet of plastic wrap and using a large spatula, press down on the mixture evenly across the surface.  This will help push out some of the air and compress the layers before you cut into the pastry.  Remove the plastic.  Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry into squares or diamonds, as you prefer, making cuts that are about 1 1/2" apart.  Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Meanwhile, make the syrup by combining the syrup ingredients in a small pan.  Bring to a boil and let boil for two minutes, stirring rapidly.  (You may want to turn the temperature down to medium to keep it from boiling over.)  Remove the lemon peel and allow the syrup to cool before pouring over the hot pastry. 

When the pastry comes out of the oven, immediately pour the cooled syrup evenly over the surface of the pan, so that it will coat each piece.  Allow the baklava to sit for at least four hours (overnight is best) before serving so that it will cool and absorb the syrup.  Go over the cuts in the pastry one more time with a sharp knife before serving.

Variations:  Instead of the spices in the filling, you can use 4 tsp. mazaher (orange blossom water).  You can also use finely chopped almonds, pistachios, or cashews (or a mixture) in the place of the walnuts.  If you want to make a more traditional Syrian/Lebanese baklava, swap out the honey for an equal amount of sugar in the syrup.