Week 4: Baklava

Baklava

Well, last week wasn’t incredibly difficult nor did it stretch our baking skills/knowledge. This week was a bit more of a challenge, similar to our first week. Like the bakewell tart of week 1, we had never eaten baklava and, even now, aren’t sure if we succeeded in making a proper one or not, as we have nothing to judge it against. We have, however, at least seen baklava and felt that at least in the looks category, we succeeded.

Baklava is a Greek dessert that is made with phyllo (filo) dough, nuts, butter, and honey. We looked at a few different recipes and there seems to be many variations regarding the spices and other ingredients as well as what types of nuts should be used. However, we found that every traditional baklava recipe had at least those four ingredients in common.

Aubrey wanted to use pre-made phyllo dough and I challenged her to consider making it. This is our foray into baking after all. I did a little research and convinced her that we could do it!

For our recipe, we used Aubrey’s Cooks Illustrated Baking Book again (and, again, the recipe isn’t available online…sorry…unless you pay for a subscription). For the phyllo dough, we found some videos from Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

For the Phyllo

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading 
• 5 teaspoons olive oil 
• ½ teaspoon fine salt
• 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
• ¾ cup warm water (110 degrees F (43 degrees C))

• ½ cup cornstarch (for dusting)
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (for dusting)

watch this video for “how to” https://www.allrecipes.com/video/7661/homemade-phyllo-or-filo-dough/

For the Baklava (from Cook’s Illustrated)

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 3/4 cup slivered almonds
• 2 T sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom (or ground cloves)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 16 oz (14 x 9-inch) phyllo dough thawed
• 24 T (3 sticks) unsalted butter (will be clarified)

For the Syrup

• 3/4 cup water
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 5 whole cloves
• 3 (2 inch) strips lemon zest plus 1 T lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp salt

Instructions

1. FOR THE SUGAR SYRUP: Bring all ingredients to a boil in small saucepan, stirring occasionally to ensure that sugar dissolves. Transfer syrup to 2-cup liquid measuring cup and set aside to cool while making and baking baklava; when syrup is cool, remove spices and lemon zest. (Cooled syrup can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.)
2. FOR THE NUT FILLING: Pulse almonds in food processor until very finely chopped, about 20 pulses; transfer to medium bowl. Pulse walnuts in processor until very finely chopped, about 15 pulses; transfer to bowl with almonds and toss to combine. Measure out 1 T nuts and set aside for garnish. Add sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt to nut mixture and toss well to combine.
3. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Melt butter slowly in small saucepan over medium-low heat until milk solids have separated from butterfat and collected on bottom of saucepan, about 10 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat, let butter settle for 10 minutes, then carefully skim foam from surface with spoon.
4. When all of foam has been removed, slowly pour clear butterfat into bowl, leaving all milk solids behind in the saucepan (you should have about 1 cup clarified butter).
5. Grease 9×13-inch pan with clarified butter. Keeping phyllo sheets covered with plastic wrap and damp dish towel to prevent them from drying out, place 1 phyllo sheet in bottom of prepared pan and brush with clarified butter until completely coated. Layer 7 phyllo sheets into pan, brushing each sheet with butter. Sprinkle 1/3 of nut filling evenly over phyllo.
6. Layer 6 phyllo sheets into pan, brushing each layer with butter, then sprinkle with 1/3 of nut filling. Repeat with 6 phyllo sheets, butter, and remaining 1/3 nut filling.
7. Layer remaining 8 to 10 phyllo sheets into pan, brushing each layer, except final layer with butter. Working from center outward, use palms of hands to compress layers and press out any air pockets. Spoon 4 tablespoons of butter on top layer and brush to cover surface.
8. Using serrated knife with pointed tip, cut baklava into diamonds. Bake baklava until golden and crisp, about 1 1/2 hours, rotating pan halfway through baking.
9. Immediately pour all but 2 T of cooled syrup over cut lines (syrup will sizzle when it hits hot pan). Drizzle remaining 2 T syrup over surface. Garnish with ground nuts. Let baklava cool completely in pan, about 3 hours, then cover with aluminum foil and let sit at room temperature for about 8 hours before serving.

We also watched the video that was paired with the phyllo dough video: https://www.allrecipes.com/video/7662/chef-johns-baklava/

Our Experience

This is normally where I would list our substitutions in order to make our dessert healthier. For the baklava, we decided that it had to be made without substitutions (at least for our first time)…for the most part anyway. We didn’t want to put all our time into a phyllo dough just to find out whole wheat didn’t work. The recipe called for walnuts and we had pecans, so we made that substitution. Rather than make our own clarified butter, we purchased grass-fed, organic ghee, which our research listed as an acceptable substitute. We followed the rest of the recipe other than using our homemade phyllo dough until it ran out and then used the store bought back up.

Making the dough wasn’t difficult, just time consuming. Since Chef John’s method created circular sheets, we considered making a round baklava and we probably should have, but that would have been too easy 😉 .

We measured the dry ingredients and placed them in the bowl, created the well, and then poured the wet ingredients in and began mixing with our hands. (I used a digital thermometer to check the water temperature.) Once the dough was mixed up, it was turned out of the bowl and the kneading began. It was pretty sticky when we got started so we added flour throughout the first 10 minutes of kneading. Once it stopped sticking, we just kneaded without adding more flour. The recipe said to knead until it was smooth so that took at least 20 minutes, probably more. Then we let it rest for an hour.

While the dough was resting, we made the syrup and prepared the filling. The syrup was pretty easy. I used the potato peeler for those giant strips of zest. The syrup was boiling within a few minutes because there wasn’t much to cook. Once it was done, we put it in the glass measuring cup to cool because we knew it might take longer than we thought.

As I was making the syrup, Aubrey was preparing the filling. She used the food processor to grind the nuts. We weren’t sure how “course” to course grind them but we knew we wanted them to be crunchy not pasty in the baklava.

After resting for an hour, we started working on the homemade phyllo dough. We followed the instructions in the video posted above. We portioned the dough into 20g sections and covered them up so they wouldn’t dry out. We then worked with 5 pieces and made 5 sheets at a time. We rolled each ball of dough into a small 5″ circle, stacked them on top of each other, then rolled the 5 pieces of dough together until they were at least doubled in size.

Once they were rolled out, we placed a piece of parchment paper on the bottom and top of the stack, rolled it up, and then wrapped it in plastic wrap. We ended up having 5 packages with all but one having 5 sheets of dough or 24 circles of phyllo dough.

Once our last one was rolled out, we started the assembly. Layering the dough and butter first. Some recipes specified brushing the butter on each sheet while others said to just randomly drizzle it. For the sake of time, we decided that drizzling would be our method.

Since we had the round sheets, there were some overlaps and they were visible on this first layer of filling but the subsequent layers didn’t have them.

We weren’t sure how big to cut them so we cut them as big as we thought we would want them. I think a lot of other recipes make them a little smaller than we did. This step is pretty important because if you don’t cut them beforehand, you’ll destroy them trying to cut them after they’re baked. The crispy layers of phyllo would be crushed if you tried to cut them.

We poured the syrup over the baked baklava as soon as we took it out of the oven. The syrup sizzled as it hit the bottom of the pan.

The syrup seemed like a lot in the measuring cup but it disappeared pretty quickly as it was poured first in all of the cracks and edges and then over the top. (By the way, it had been cooling for a couple hours but was still warm.) We had decided earlier on that we didn’t really need the garnish of nuts and didn’t have any on our final dessert. It smelled delicious and we wanted to try it right away but we had to exercise patience for this one! We got to try it the following day.

We ran out of our homemade phyllo on the second to the last layer so we used the store bought phyllo to finish it up. Since they were basically the same size as our pan, we didn’t have any sheets overlapping once we started using those. After it was baked, we were able to see the layers of phyllo on the top two layers and we aren’t sure if it was the store bought phyllo or if that’s typical with the top layers vs. the bottom layers. It looked and smelled fabulous!

What we liked.

This dessert got 5 thumbs up with some even giving double thumbs up! We liked the ease of making the dessert once we had completed the dough. It was just layering and that was pretty simple. We loved the flavors and would recommend heating it up before eating because we tend to like warm desserts at our house but it also tasted better. Finally, it is such a pretty dessert and we loved what it looked like when it was finished. It would be worthy of guests, in our opinion.

What we would change.

Probably the only sure thing we would change would be to just use the store bought phyllo. That phyllo was thinner than what we were able to create and, of course, it would save a lot of time. Usually homemade is just better, but not so in this instance. IF we did choose to make our own again, we would use the round pan as shown in the video above.

We might add a little more spice next time, like more cinnamon for example. We read another recipe (after making ours) that used lemon zest in the filling and we thought that, too, might be nice. I think my only negative was that it seemed like the whole dessert was kind of one note (for me). I would have liked a little citrus or something to keep it from being the same bite from start to finish. The rest of my family would eat the whole pan as is…with ice cream!

What we learned.

Of course, we learned how to make phyllo dough. I had never used cornstarch to roll dough out and it was pretty cool how the dough didn’t absorb it the way it would have with flour. We learned how to work with phyllo dough too. It is so thin and fragile. It required a very soft touch and we kept a damp cloth on it to keep it from drying out.

We didn’t make our own clarified butter but we would be up for doing it in the future if we save time buying phyllo. The clarified butter helped the phyllo to brown evenly and to get really crispy. The wait time also helped the whole household learn some patience. It’s hard not to eat something that you have been smelling for several hours! Since it was a hit with everyone, we will most likely make this again.

Until next week, Happy Baking!