I decided to give this wonderful treat a try. It wasn’t all that difficult to put together, and it’s still cooling, so I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I’d be interested in recipes and helpful hints from anyone who has made this successfully. This is the recipe I used.
I made it once with peanuts instead of tree nuts for a friend who is allergic to all tree nuts. Came out quite well [ orange blossom water in the syrup] People who had a piece of each batch [peanut and treenut] thought they compared quite well. My preferred tree nuts for it are pistachio and walnut. I like both orange and rose waters and will use either. I have tried lemon, but didnt’ like it as much as the orange.
I added orange zest to the syrup. It came out very nice. I chose walnuts and threw in what was left of a bag of sliced almonds. I also used Tupelo honey, which has a wonderful flavor, and Kerrygold butter. Yum.
yum indeed.
Sounds great, especially with the orange peel and the Tupelo honey! There’s a recipe linked to on the page that you linked to for pistachio hazelnut baklava, which also sounds intriguing. And I’ve occasionally wondered how pecans would taste instead of walnuts.
I’m also quite fond of galaktoboureko.
Many years ago I attended an all-day course which included Baklava. There I learned that the sickenly sweet version that I like is not considered traditional. So the Baklava I brought home was supposedly more traditional, but I’ve never made it again.
The opinion from the leader is it is really based on the quality of the phyllo dough. Get good dough, and it will probably turn out well.
And if you want to make your own phyllo dough? He didn’t recommend it as it’s usually easy to find a quality product and let the home cook concentrate on the fillings.
Awww, man! I thought this was going to be about balaclavas…
Any nuts will work, of course, but I think pecans would be too sweet (if there is such a thing). I like the walnuts, as they offset all the sugar. I’m also not a big fan of hazelnuts, although my wife is.
Baklava is truly heaven on earth. Thinking about it the other day (before your thread), I was musing about what kind of butter it was made with, because cow butter might not be a traditional Greek ingredient. Turns out, for the phyllo dough, there is no butter; they use olive oil.
I wonder what “butter” might be used in a traditional Greek Baklava recipe? I keep seeing “butter” as an ingredient, but do they really mean cow butter?
Baklava is always thought of as a Greek food, but it is of Turkish Ottoman origin, and possibly even dating to the Roman Empire. It’s very common in many middle eastern countries. I would never have thought of using olive oil, as it has a bitter element to it.