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Spent most (read: 3 hours) of today making baklava! Mmmmyum. I've made it once before, or rather, watched M make it once, but decided that I wanted to give it a chance and make it all by myself. I had remembered mostly of what M and I did, but I'd forgotten just enough to be able to put my own spin on it. This is entirely based on M's father's recipe, tho.
I started out by going online to get some ideas from recipes, but quickly discovered that they were all making walnut or pistachio based baklava, Greek, Turkish?, whereas the one M taught me to make was sesame paste based, Lebanese, maybe?, so other than the suggestion for what spices to use they weren't much help.
At least I remembered what the jar was supposed to look like, when I went to the Middle Eastern store for halawa, or klava, or whatever it's called. Sesame paste. They had two kinds, one that looked delicious with large pieces of chopped pistachios mixed up with the sesame paste, but considering the fact that I'd be spreading it all over the kitchen and my sister's severe allergy to nuts I went for the (relatively) plain sesame paste instead (and also, M scoffed scornfully at the other one that time we made baklava together).
I didn't use pre-made phyllo pastry sheets either, but insted a regular (tho pre-made) dough that I rolled out and folded back over several times. All the recipes I found said to have one layer, or, well, a dozen sheets of phyllo, in the bottom, and then one layer of ground nuts, and then a final layer of dough on top, but from my memory I made several layers, thin layers of halawa separated by dough, each layered flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom (and butter. lots of melted butter on each layer of dough.). I think I had 7 layers of dough, which makes 6 layers of halawa. Cut it in desired pieces and then into the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. (Tho there were left-over pieces of dough eaten with halawa and butter without an oven. Mmmmmmmmm......)
Finally, I went to look at the recipes, but since I had no idea of what proportions I'd been using, for the next time, more syrup. Yes. Lots more. Water, sugar/honey, rosewater/lemon, cloves/cinnamon in any combination with / meaning and/or. I used water, suger, cloves, and I traded the lemon for lime, as I'm simply very fond of lime, and gosh, so delicious. And the pour the syrup over (tho I felt tempted to just *drink* the syrup instead) and let it sit for a day (or a few hours) to let it soak in properly.
The finished product isn't the most aesthetically pleasing of pastries to look at (tho I belive this can be improved by time and trial), but by the gods, it's tasty. Thank you M('s father!)!
And that black stuff on top is *cinnamon*, not burnt.
I started out by going online to get some ideas from recipes, but quickly discovered that they were all making walnut or pistachio based baklava, Greek, Turkish?, whereas the one M taught me to make was sesame paste based, Lebanese, maybe?, so other than the suggestion for what spices to use they weren't much help.
At least I remembered what the jar was supposed to look like, when I went to the Middle Eastern store for halawa, or klava, or whatever it's called. Sesame paste. They had two kinds, one that looked delicious with large pieces of chopped pistachios mixed up with the sesame paste, but considering the fact that I'd be spreading it all over the kitchen and my sister's severe allergy to nuts I went for the (relatively) plain sesame paste instead (and also, M scoffed scornfully at the other one that time we made baklava together).
I didn't use pre-made phyllo pastry sheets either, but insted a regular (tho pre-made) dough that I rolled out and folded back over several times. All the recipes I found said to have one layer, or, well, a dozen sheets of phyllo, in the bottom, and then one layer of ground nuts, and then a final layer of dough on top, but from my memory I made several layers, thin layers of halawa separated by dough, each layered flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom (and butter. lots of melted butter on each layer of dough.). I think I had 7 layers of dough, which makes 6 layers of halawa. Cut it in desired pieces and then into the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. (Tho there were left-over pieces of dough eaten with halawa and butter without an oven. Mmmmmmmmm......)
Finally, I went to look at the recipes, but since I had no idea of what proportions I'd been using, for the next time, more syrup. Yes. Lots more. Water, sugar/honey, rosewater/lemon, cloves/cinnamon in any combination with / meaning and/or. I used water, suger, cloves, and I traded the lemon for lime, as I'm simply very fond of lime, and gosh, so delicious. And the pour the syrup over (tho I felt tempted to just *drink* the syrup instead) and let it sit for a day (or a few hours) to let it soak in properly.
The finished product isn't the most aesthetically pleasing of pastries to look at (tho I belive this can be improved by time and trial), but by the gods, it's tasty. Thank you M('s father!)!
And that black stuff on top is *cinnamon*, not burnt.
accomplished
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