Baklava (Assim Style)
Ingredients
2 ½ cups of cold water
3 ½ cups of sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 cups walnuts, plus extra for sprinkling (optional)
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 ½ cups of butter (note: traditionally they use a type
of butter called clarified butter but for this recipe we will use plain
normal butter. Also note: The one and one half cups of butter will
be a guideline since I use a heck of a lot more in this recipe for the
size of pan that I use. So have at least five sticks handy for this
if the pan that you plan to use is rather large.
2 packages of filo dough, each containing at least 20 to 22 sheets
of dough. (note: please leave filo dough in your fridge the night before
so that it can thaw and be manipulated into the pan.)
Finely chopped walnuts (This also is optional since you can use pistacio
nuts, almonds, etc, but for this recipe do it with walnuts just to get
the hang of it.)
The Assembly/Directions part of it
Turn on the oven and heat it to 375 F.
Okay next thing that we are going to do is to make the syrup. Get a
medium sized saucepan and put the 2 1\2 cups of cold water plus the 3 ½
cups of sugar together. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes then lower
the heat to simmer, uncovered, for around 15 minutes. You’ll know
when the syrup is done when it looks light yellow and is tacky when you
put your spoon to stir it. By this time you can take the 2
tablespoons of lemon juice and put that in. Then you let the mixture cool.
The second part of this preparation continues to the nuts. We then take the walnuts and place them into a food processor. Put some sugar with the nuts so that they will grind together. Grind them (the nuts) down to a medium to a semi-fine state. Warning; try not to grind it too fine or you will have baklava which friends will call your dust dessert, or worse the flake surprise. Once they are ground to your liking then place them aside; preferably in a bowl of some sort.
Brush the inside of a 14 X 18 X 1-inch baking pan with some melted butter. Place one sheet of dough and place it into the pan. With that same brush slightly brush the next layer of the dough that you will put into the pan. Brush then next layer with a new brush and take of the sugar syrup that you had made and brush that layer with it. Continue layering the dough and alternating the butter and sugar brushings onto it until the first 20 layers (or one package of filo dough ) are used.
Smile now since half of your job is done. Take all of those ground sugar and walnuts that you made and put them into the pan. Lightly sprinkle the walnuts with water (a plant spritzer works best so I have read) in the pan so that the sugar mixed nuts adhere to that layer of filo dough.
Using the second package of filo dough layer the rest of the pan like you did with the first package of dough and alternatively brush each layer. Don’t forget to trim the edges of the pan so that it doesn’t get a mess later on. Brush top layer and the edges with butter.
Using a sharp knife dipped in hot water cut through the dough halfway down the height of the pan. To make 48 pieces make 4 lengthwise cuts and 12 crosswise ones.
Now the actual baking part. Take this wonderful pan of baklava that you have just made and put it in the oven. Let it cook for about 30 minutes. Lower the heat then to around 325 F and bake for an additional 30 minutes. You should see the top become a nice golden brown.
Once that is done take it out of the oven and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Then take the same knife that you made all your cuts with and cut it again
this time going all the way to the bottom of the pan. Pour some of
the cold syrup onto those cut lines that you had made. Sprinkle with
some nuts on the top if you want. Otherwise let it cool completely
and then
serve.
This is the way I make my baklava. The pan I use is a lot bigger
than the one used in this recipe but the many more times that you make
it the more that you can figure out ways to custom design it to your liking.
Also note: I sometimes use four bowls when I make baklava. One bowl
is for the melted butter, another is for the syrup, the third is for a
combo of the two (ie butter and syrup together) and finally the bowl for
the ground sugar and walnuts. Also note that if you are making this
in camp then your temperatures will have to be experimented with since
it will be different for which way you cook stuff.