Happy holidays! I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas. I sure enjoyed taking some time off to hang out with the kids. This holiday season, I made a delicious baklava for our Christmas Eve celebration. Baklava is originally a Turkish dish but is also very well known in Greek tradition as well. It’s made from very thin and layered pieces of phyllo dough. It was a hit with my family.
Ingredients for the syrup:
¾ cup water
¾ cup sugar
½ cup honey
Juice from one lemon
Ingredients for the baklava:
1 box phyllo dough
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Nutella
2 1/2 cups pecans (finely chopped)
Directions
This is a very uncomplicated dish to make. We start by making our simple syrup. This will give the syrup time to cool down before you pour it over your baklava. Get out a saucepan and bring to a boil the water, sugar, honey, and lemon juice. Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool.
Get a 9 x 13 baking pan and grease the bottom and the sides with butter. Start by laying eight sheets of phyllo dough into the bottom of your pan. Have some melted butter and a brush on hand. You will need to brush some butter over each individual sheet.
Once you have your eight layers down, spread ½ cup Nutella on top of the eighth phyllo sheet, then sprinkle ½ cup chopped pecans.
Add six buttered phyllo sheets, brushing butter on each individual sheet. Top with ½ cup pecans. Add six more phyllo sheets, brushing butter on each individual sheet. Top with ½ cup Nutella and ½ cup pecans.
Add eight more phyllo sheets, brushing butter on each one. Generously brush the top of your last layer of phyllo dough. Take a sharp knife and cut the pastry diagonally both ways to form small diamond shapes.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove the baklava from the oven and immediately pour the syrup evenly over the entire pastry. You will hear the most satisfying sizzle as the syrup hits the hot pan.
Let the baklava sit at room temperature for about six hours before serving, so that the phyllo dough soaks in all of the syrup.
Tara’s tips and tricks:
• Cover your phyllo dough in a damp cloth while layering your dessert to keep the phyllo dough from drying out.
• Microwave your Nutella for 10 seconds at a time to warm it up and make it more easily spreadable.
• Do not worry if you add a layer extra here or miss one there… it will be OK.
Tara Riddle is a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Select. She also works at the Farmer’s Market in Carson City or Black Rock Bison.