Traditional baklava is quite labor-intensive to make by brushing each layer of phyllo dough with butter. I'm sharing with you an easy and quick way to make baklava but it still gives a really good result. The baklava can be made with or without butter/ghee. I seriously can't tell the difference.
85grneutral-tasting cooking oilI use grape seeds oil
Spices:
1tspground cinnamon
⅛tspground allspice
⅛tspground cloves
Honey syrup:
340grhoney
100grsugar
¾cupwater
⅛tspsalt
1Tbsporange zest
To garnish:
1Tbspground pistachio
Instructions
Prepare the syrup:
Place all ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan and bring to a simmer and let it simmer for 5 minutes and then off the heat. Let it cools off completely. You can prepare this the day before too. It's important to let the syrup cool down completely before pouring over the baked baklava
340 gr honey, 100 gr sugar, 3/4 cup water, 1 Tbsp orange zest, 1/8 tsp salt
Prepare the nuts mixture:
Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Ground the nuts finely in a food processor. Combine them with the sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves in a bowl
100 gr walnuts, 100 gr pistachio, 30 gr sugar, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/8 tsp ground allspice, 1/8 tsp ground cloves, 100 gr almonds
The phyllo dough usually comes frozen. If you get a 1 lb pack, you only need half of them for this recipe. Thaw them overnight in the fridge or at room temperature for about 2 hours
227 gr phyllo dough
Prepare the phyllo dough:
Unroll the phyllo. Immediately cover with plastic wrap and then a damp towel. Do not let the damp towel touch the phyllo dough directly because it makes the phyllo dough turn soggy. Keep covered while working as phyllo dough dries out very quickly when exposed to dry air
227 gr phyllo dough
Brush a 9 x 9-inch square baking pan with melted butter or oil (or you can also use cooking spray). Cut the stacks of phyllo dough about the same size as your pan, a little over is fine too as they will shrink after baking
227 gr phyllo dough
Lay 1/2 of the phyllo sheet stack on the pan. Top with some of the scraps from cutting the phyllo sheet earlier. So the bottom will have a bit more layers than the top. Pour the nut mixture on top evenly. Then cover the rest of phyllo sheet stack
227 gr phyllo dough
Use a very sharp knife to cut diagonally through the phyllo dough, making sure to cut all the way to the bottom, then cut straight to form diamond shapes. You can also just cut in squares if it's easier. You want to cut first before baking because after baking, it's almost impossible to cut them without breaking the crispy phyllo into pieces. Pour the oil (or butter/ghee if using that instead of oil) all over the dough and tilt the pan as needed to let the oil sip to the layers of phyllo underneath too. Use a pastry brush to brush the top to make sure the oil covers the top evenly too. You don't want any dry spots
85 gr neutral-tasting cooking oil, 113 gr ghee
Baking:
Put the baking pan on the middle rack and bake for 50-60 minutes or until the top has nice golden brown
Once out from the oven, immediately pour half of the cooled-down syrup all over the hot baklava, tilting the pan to even out and then pour the rest again and tilt the pan to let the syrup go through the layers underneath
Garnish with some ground pistachio on each piece
1 Tbsp ground pistachio
Cooling down:
Let the baklava cools down for 2 hours before serving
Notes
If you choose to use butter/ghee, ghee is better because it has been clarified and doesn't have much water left compared to butter. Butter will make the baklava soggy much faster because of the water content