Homemade Baklava
Crunchy filo pastry loaded with walnut, soft inside with just the right amount of sweetness
- Prep time
- 30 min
- Cook time
- 1 hr
- Yield
- 8 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 250 g filo pastry (1 pack of store bough filo pastry)
- 80 g Unsalted butter (melted)
- 320 g walnut (roast then pulse blend)
- 180 g Water
- 100 g Granulated sugar
- 75 g Honey
- 1 Lemon juice (approx juice of 1 lemon)
- 1 Lemon zest (do not grate, it should be in 3-4 pieces so that you can take them out from the syrup later)
- Cinnamon stick
- 1 tablespoon Rosewater (only use pure 100% natural rosewater)
Instructions
- 1
Start with roasting walnut in the oven for 5-10 minutes in 180 C / 356 F. Remove it from the oven after you start to feel a lovely nutty smell
- 2
Pulse bland walnut in food processor until very tiny pieces but do not ground it fully. Alternatively use a sharp knife
- 3
Melt butter in microwave for a minute or less
- 4
Continue with preparing the filo pastry and trim it to your baking pan. Mine is a 15 cm (6 inch) round cake pan
- 5
Place the filo pastry sheets in between to very lightly wet tea towel so they don´t dry out
- 6
Then it´s assembling time. You will want to take 2 filo sheets at the same time and then brush it with butter
- 7
As explained above at the tips section mine has 32 sheets of filo:6 sheets at the bottom: 2 sheets then brush with butter and repeat 3x20 sheets in the middle 2 sheets then brush with butter and 1 tablespoon walnut and repeat 10x6 sheets on the top as per: 2 sheets then brush with butter and repeat 3x
- 8
After assembling place it into the fridge for 30 minutes
- 9
Preheat oven to 180 C / 356 F
- 10
When the dough cooled down, take a sharp knife and cut it into diamond shape
- 11
Bake for 45 minutes or until top golden brown
- 12
Toward the end of the baking time, prepare the syrup: Boil all the ingredients together except rosewater until slightly thickens (5-10 minutes depending on stove) and reaches syrup consistency. Remove from heat, remove lemon zest pieces, cinnamon stick and mix in rosewater
- 13
Pour syrup over the baklava as soon as it comes out of the oven. Let syrup sink into the baklava for a few hours
- 14
Serve on room temperature, it´s even better on the next day!