This traditional Turkish dish is the perfect sweet treat for those of you who just can’t get enough of nuts. Packed with pistachios, walnuts, and pecans, layered between filo pastry and sweetened with honey syrup, this will fast become your favourite dessert.
Ingredients
- 500g of filo pastry, or roughly two packs of ready-made filo pastry
- 200g pistachios, plus extra finely ground pistachios for garnishing
- 50g walnuts
- 50g pecans
- 3 tbsp honey
- 200g butter, with extra for greasing
For the syrup
- 50g honey
- 250g caster sugar
- 2 tsp orange extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 200ml water
Method
- Preheat your oven to 180℃/160℃ fan/gas mark 4. Grease a square cake tin, roughly 21cm x 21cm, with the extra butter. Use your Cooks Professional food processor to blitz 200g of the pistachios, and all of the walnuts and pecans, but be careful not to blitz them into a paste. Empty the nut mixture into a bowl, then stir in the honey and a pinch of salt. Set to one side. You can also blitz more pistachios to use as a garnish once the baklava is cooked – set these to one side in a clean bowl.
- Melt the butter, either by heating on the hob in a Cooks Professional saucepan, or in the microwave. Cut the first pack of filo pastry in half so that it fits in the square tin. Place one sheet in the tin, then brush with the melted butter. Add another sheet on top of it, then brush this with butter again, and continue layering like this until the whole of the first pack of filo pastry is used up.
- Scatter the honey and nut mixture over the top layer of pastry until well covered, using the back of a spoon to press it down. Open the second pack of filo, again cutting it in half so that the layers will fit in the tray. Add a sheet of pastry and brush with the melted butter, then continue the layering process until the final pack of filo pastry has all been used. Once the last sheet has been placed onto the baklava, pour any remaining butter over the top to finish. Using a sharp Cooks Professional knife, cut deep lines into the pastry to create diamond or square shapes. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 150℃/130℃ fan/gas mark 2 and cook for another 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the syrup. In a clean Cooks Professional saucepan combine the syrup ingredients, heating gently until the sugar has dissolved. Boil the mixture for between 8-10 minutes or until the syrup has reduced to the consistency of runny honey.
- Remove the baklava from the oven and pour the warm syrup over the top so that it runs down the lines you have cut. Allow to completely soak in, and leave the baklava to cool for roughly four hours. Top with the remaining pistachio garnish once cold and serve.
Lead image: LemonTreeKid via Getty Images.