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Trail: Baklava

Baklava

Food

Baklava or Baklawa, depends on your preference 1

Ingredients

 10 sheets filo pastry
 50gms unsalted butter, melted
 200gms walnut pieces/kernels
 1/2 cup water
 2/3 cup sugar
 2 tsp lemon juice

Directions
First make up the syrup. Combine the water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, without stirring, for 10 minutes or until the liquid has reduced by a quarter. Put aside to cool a little, but keep it at room temperature. It will thicken up a little as it cools.

Preheat oven to 180C. Process the walnut pieces until roughly chopped - but don’t turn them into powder. Take a sheet of filo, brush half with melted butter, and fold over. Place in a greased tin or ovenproof dish, sprinkle with about 3-4 teaspoons of the walnuts. Repeat the layers, finishing with pastry. Brush top with butter, then cut into squares, then triangles.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, and pour over the lukewarm sugar syrup. It will sizzle a bit, then leave to sit and soak the syrup up for about 15 minutes. Serve warm.

My Notes
This was quite a lot of walnuts - I thought I’d written the recipe out wrong, maybe it was supposed to be 2 tablespoons, not teaspoons. Originally it was 2 teaspoons of walnuts per layer, but that would have left heaps over. I used 3-4 teaspoons of walnuts each layer.

If you’ve got extra filo pastry you may as well add another layer or 2, it won’t hurt it much. Just give it another 5 minutes in the oven if you do.

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