Yiayia's Baklava

From my Greek roots, I present you with my Yiayia's Baklava recipe. This is a great dessert if you love nuts, honey, and flaky pastry dough. Every bite makes you wish you were in Greece.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Mixture/Layers

• 10-12 oz of raw walnuts (you can use a mixture of almonds, pistachios, walnuts, or really your nut of choice - just make sure they are raw)

  • If you like a more nutty baklava, you can add 16 oz as well

• ¼ cup of sugar (white)

• 2 ¼ tsp cinnamon

• ¼ tsp salt

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter (melted)

• (1) 16 oz package of phyllo dough (thawed).

  • I recommend the Kontos brand dough for Country Style #10. I use this for EVERY Greek Recipe I make that requires Phyllo.

Syrup

• ¾ cup of white sugar

• 1 cup of raw honey

  • You can always use equal parts of raw honey and a more cost effective (tea type of honey)

• 1 cup of water

• Flavoring of choice (additional cinnamon/cinnamon stick, you can add vanilla extract, etc)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2. In a food processor, add the nuts, sugar, cinnamon, and salt and pulse until finely chopped.

   1. Some big, some small is a good rule of thumb.

3. Using a 9x13 inch pan, use a pastry brush or tool of choice to brush the pan with melted butter (heavy on the butter).

4. Start laying your phyllo sheets. Start with laying 1 sheet of phyllo to the pan. Then, with the pastry brush, slather more butter generously to the sheet. Repeat this until you have around 4-6 sheets on the bottom first layer of phyllo

   1. For each layer, also press down on the them in the pan

5. Sprinkle around ⅓ of the nut mixture to the layer.

6. Repeat this entire process 2 more times by adding phyllo layer, butter in between, and nut layer.

7. You should end with the phyllo layer to finish and then with remaining butter again, top the final layer with brushed butter.

8. Using a knife (straight blade that cuts well), delicately cut the pan into squares (make sure to cute all the way down). And then, cut each square on a diagonal (would finish them off to look like triangles)

   1. TIP: This helps for presentation, along with making the pastry - WAY easier to pop out of the pan.

9. Bake until golden (40-45 minutes)

10. While the baklava is in the oven, use that time to create the syrup that goes on top!!!

11. In a saucepan, combine sugar, honey, 1 cup of water, and flavoring of choice. Get this to boil over medium high heat, and stir occasionally.

12. Then, reduce to medium low heat and simmer until thickened (should take around 10 ish minutes).

13. Remove from heat, and let sit until the baklava is out of the oven.

14. Once the baklava is pulled out of the oven, let sit for 5 minutes to slightly start to cool off. Then, start to pour/or ladle the syrup all over the baklava pan

    1. Make sure to get the corners, sides, and well everywhere.

    2. Note: it seems like a lot of syrup, but once the pan cools the nut mixture layers will become moist and delicious - also keeps everything to stick together once you pull out pieces.

**Store in an air tight container - EX: use a 9x13 that has a lid to it!

This stays up to 3-5 days inside the container!