Sunday 5 October 2014

Baklava

The GBBO technical was baklava this week and when my friend asked me if I could make it, I wasn't likely to say no, even though I haven't actually ever made it. But today was the Free Cakes for Kids meeting so what better timing than to make some for the meeting and share out with friends and family first.

There's a fair few recipes floating around but in essence it's just filo and nuts. In the end I made my own recipe up combining the ideas of several different recipes. 

1 packet of filo pastry (250g)
300g bag whole pistachios or 150g shelled pistachios 
1 tsp ground cinnamon
125g butter

200ml water
200g caster sugar
100g honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp orange extract 

Makes 12 pieces

Preheat oven to 180/160 fan. 

Whizz up the pistachios with the cinnamon until coarsley ground. 

Melt the butter and using a pastry brush, paint a 15 x 25cm tin/ovenproof dish. Then take the filo sheets and cut in half, folding each half in half again and put into the dish one piece at a time, slathering each piece in butter as you build up the layers. Once you've used half of the sheets, tip the pistachios in and level out then continue to layer up the filo sheets with butter slicking each layer and make sure the top layer has butter on it too. 

You then need to cut the baklava before it bakes. I think tradition dictates diamonds but I just did squares (makes life much easier). Bake in the oven for an hour turning the oven down to 160/140 fan if it's browning to quickly.

In the meantime make the syrup. Add the water, sugar, honey, cinnamon and orange extract* to the pan and simmer for 15 minutes. Pour into a jug and put in the fridge to cool.

*recipes tend to use rose water, orange blossom water or both. I bought what I thought was orange blossom water but turned out to be orange extract 

Once the baklava are cooked, take out of the oven and pour over the syrup. Leave to cool before demolishing!

Mine seemed to go down really well at the meeting. There are times I really do wish I could taste my baking, and this is definitely one of those times :(

Not the prettiest photos, I must learn to take some decent ones for my blog :)





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