Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: jazzie@cix.compulink.co.uk (Peggy Shambo)
Subject: Baklava                       
Cc: jazzie@cix.compulink.co.uk
Reply-To: jazzie@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:34:00 +0000

Having just put a pan of baklava in the oven, I thought I would
live up to my promise to post a recipe for it.

First of all, buy yourself a package or two of filo dough and
defrost it for several hours at room temperature, or a good lot
longer in the refrigerator.  The size of your package and some
experience will tell you exactly how much you need.  Whatever
you do, only open one package at a time.

Other ingredients you need:

Chopped walnuts
      and/or Chopped almonds... altogether about 4 cups
Butter.. *NOT* margarine, 1/2 cup, maybe more?
Stick cinnamon, 2 or 3 sticks
Ground cinnamon
Whole cloves, 10 or 12
Ground cloves
Honey, 1 cup

Chop the nuts very finely.  I do it in the food processor, until
the nuts are about the size of a "chunk" in chunky peanut butter.
But you *DON'T* want peanut butter consistency!

Add about a tablespoon of ground cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp. ground cloves.
Run the food processor a few more pulses until everything is evenly
distributed.

Put 1 c. honey in a saucepan, with about 1 c. water, some stick
cinnamon and about 10 or 12 whole cloves.  Bring to a boil, and let
simmer while preparing the rest of the baklava.

Melt about a 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter

Open your first package of filo dough.  Be very, very careful
because this stuff is very fragile and can fall into shreds
very easily.  Cut a single sheet to fit a 9 x 13 in baking pan.
Brush some of the melted butter onto the sheet.  Repeat until
you have 4 sheets in the bottom of the pan.

Put some of the chopped nuts evenly over the filo sheets.  Repeat
with 4 more filo sheets, buttering between each sheet.  Then
more nuts, more filo... until all the nuts are gone.  (I find that
3 layers of nuts with 4 layers of filo/butter is about right... you
might have to melt more butter, if necessary)

Tonight, I found I had to go into my 2nd package of filo, as these
were rather small.  I can't tell you what size your filo package is,
so I can't tell you how many packages to buy.  Once you have defrosted
a package you shouldn't re-freeze it.  But that's OK... there are so
many things you can do with filo dough!

The top several sheets of filo must be neat, and not torn in anyway.
(Or it will just look sloppy, ya know?)

Now, with a fork, score the top layer, right down through the filling,
into 2 inch long diamonds.  In the center of each diamond, sink a
whole clove.. make a bit of a dent with it.
Remove the honey syrup from the stove.  Remove the whole spices.

Pour about 1/2 of the honey syrup over the entire pan.  It will all
seep in down through the cuts you made.  Make sure you also get some
down the sides, too.

Bake at 350 (F) for 30 minutes.  Pour the rest of the honey syrup
over everything.  Raise the oven heat to 375 (F) and bake another
15 or 20 minutes, until a rich, deep golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool.  Take the diamonds out and place in
muffin papers (each diamond individually).

Enjoy!

Jazzie

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Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking