I have been shocked at all the support I've been getting for this blog over the last month, and I’ve noticed that a lot of that support is coming from Turkey! Considering I've never been to Turkey and I don’t know anyone from Turkey I just want to say thank you so much for constantly coming back to my little blog. As a thank you, I decided to try and make a traditional Turkish dish…and what could be better than some beautiful citrus Baklava! I did some research and saw that more traditional Turkish Baklava uses lemon juice rather than honey in the syrup and focuses more on just nuts and sugar rather than adding lots of spices, of course, I wanted to try and add my own twist so I made it with lots of extra lemon and orange to give it a real citrus boost! I absolutely love this recipe and I hope you all enjoy it too!
- Preheat your oven to 170C/ 150 Fan/ Gas Mark 3 and lay your filo pastry out on a clean, dry surface. I used a silicone baking mat on my baking tray and it turned out to be the perfect size so you might need to cut your baklava sheets in half so you end up with a lot more sheets to use. Set the pastry aside covered by a tea towel so that it doesn’t dry out.
- In a food processor or pestle and mortar, crush the pistachios and peanuts together for a couple of minutes until you get a finely chopped texture, they don’t need to be exactly even or really really fine, we still want a decent crunch in between the pastry! Once you get the consistency you want, pour them into a small bowl, add in the sugar and mix together well.
- Now back to the pastry. Lay one sheet out on top of your baking mat/tray and very gently brush over a light coating of butter, continue this with 7 other sheets (for the entire baklava you should have between 20-30 sheets of filo).
- On your top buttered pastry sheet, spoon on a good helping of the sugar and nut mix, make sure it's evenly sprinkled all the way to the corners and you have a good mix of both the nut pieces and the sugar, then add another pastry sheet on top and butter that one, continue this until you use all your sugar and nut but remember to leave 8 sheets of filo for the top!
- Once you’ve used all your filling, add another 8 layers of buttered pastry onto the top and slice your baklava into squares (I ended up with about 12 pieces).
- Pop the baklava in the oven on the middle shelf to cook for between 20-25 mins until the pastry has puffed and gone slightly golden.
- Now onto the syrup! Mix your caster sugar with the zest of 2 oranges and a lemon, I used different parts of the grater to get different textures of fruit zest throughout the syrup.
- In a saucepan let 80 ml water come to a simmer on low heat before adding in the sugar and fruit zest. Let this simmer for about 5-7 mins then add in the juice of 2 oranges and a lemon, let this all come together for another 10 mins but keep stirring the syrup every couple of minutes to make sure it doesn’t get too thick and burn! Once it’s got noticeably thicker and the syrup has taken on colour from the orange, take it off the heat and let it cool for 15 mins.
- Once your syrup has cooled enough for you to taste it, use a tablespoon and pour the syrup all over the baklava! Don’t be scrimping on that syrup, we want each slice to be drenched and in-between as well, I know we’re always told not to let pastry go soggy but there's nothing better than crunchy baklava soaked in sticky sweet syrup so make sure to use it all!
- Let the baklava soak the syrup for at least 4 hours before serving…or have a cheeky slice now, it’s up to you!
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