Baklava

It's been a pretty hot summer so far and I haven't been in the kitchen quite as much as I usually am.  Cooking in 90 degree weather is pretty much the last thing I want to do.  My boyfriend had the hankering for some baklava and requested that I make some.  Excited about the idea, I decided to give it a shot.  I thought baklava would be relatively simple, not too much cooking, and I'd be in an out of the kitchen in a snap. I was sorely mistaken.  This tasty little treat is extremely labor intensive, but certainly well worth it.  

This recipe was adapted from 'The Photo Cookbook - Baking' app for iPad with some slight adjustments.  Helpful hint: Place a damp towel over the filo dough while you are buttering each layer to prevent it from drying out, it's so thin, it dries out quickly.

Main Ingredients

2 1/4 Cups walnuts, finely chopped

1 3/4 Cups shelled pistachio nuts, finely chopped

1 Cup almonds, finely chopped

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 Tsp ground cloves

1 Cup butter (2 sticks) melted

23 Sheets filo pastry

Syrup

1 1/4 Cups sugar

2 Cups water

5 Tbsp honey

1 Tsp rose water

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and butter a 10-inch baking dish.  Mix together, walnuts, pistachios, almonds, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

Place a sheet of pastry on the bottom of your dish and brush with butter.  Top with 7 layers of filo dough  brushing with butter in between each layer.  After the seventh layer place 1/5 of the walnut/pistachio/almond mixture, followed by 3 more sheets of filo with butter in between each.  Repeat until all of the mixture is gone and end with a top layer of three sheets. 

Brush with butter and cut into 2-inch squares, then bake in the pre-heated oven for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, put all of the syrup ingredients into a sauce pan, bring to a boil and let simmer for 15 minutes. 

Remove the baklava from the oven and strain syrup over the top and let cool in the dish.  After it's cooled, cut and serve!