So yesterday I decided to make a baklava for the BBQ party I am just about to go to. Instead of the usual bottle of vino that I bring as a significant other, this time I got inspired, especially since I just bought a pound of Demerara sugar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demerara_(sugar) and was eager to play with it.
So I ground about two cups of walnuts and mixed them up with cinnamon and a little bit of freshly ground nutmeg.
What I love about making baklava and feeding it to the unsuspecting crowds is that is it actually really easy to make, while most people tend to think it's a labor-intensive and complicated recipe. It's not!
I just buttered the bottom of my pan, layered a bunch of fylo sheets, spread some of the ground walnuts, repeat, and then cut up the raw baklava in squares (I think the rhomboids look cooler but they are such a pain to cut!)
Then I poured an undisclosed amount of melted butter over it ( I think if I were to tell peolpe how much butter is in it they would not eat it:)
Baked it for probably 20 or so minutes, by then the whole house starts to smell so amazingly good, when the butter and cinnamon bake together....mm, delicious!!
This time I also decided to play with the syrup. Usually I make it, as the Really-Really-Old Book says (picture of said book attached) , with 5 cups of sugar, 3 cups of water, and a bit of lemon juice.
This time I used honey, a special organic forest herbs honey with a very rich flavor, I also put a few cloves in the syrup while I was simmering it, and also I used some of the Demerara sugar, which is from sugar cane , not beets, and is minimally processed. It is dark brown in color and has a very specific, deliciously caramelly flavor to it.
Once baked, I let the baklava "rest" a bit (it's been working real hard!) and cool down while I finished making the syrup. Finally, I poured the hot syrup over the cool baklava. I don't know why but my grandmother always told me that when pouring the syrup over the baklava, one of them has to be cool and the other - hot! Either way works, supposedly, you can have hot baklava that you just took out of the over and pour cooled-down syrup, or pour hot syrup over cool baklava, which is what I usually do. I have no idea what's the reasoning behind it, but you know how most of us women do half of the things we do "because that's how my mother did it". Grandmother, in my case. The book itself I kind of "snatched" when I was leaving for the States the very first time, back in January of 2001, it is ripped and stained with food all over, it belonged to my maternal great-grandmother, Dimka. I just love this book!!
The baklava is ready:
ENJOY!
