How to make baklava Recipe

Baklava is surprisingly easy to make with ready made filo pastry and a few bits and bobs from your baking cupboard. This delicious Greek sweet makes lots of little squares so is ideal for a small treat every evening throughout the week if you make up a big batch one day. If you can bear to give it away it also makes lovely gifts, layered up in little boxes between sheets of baking paper.

HOW TO MAKE BAKLAVA

Ingredients

• 2x275g packs filo pastry
• 225g (8oz) butter
• 125g (5oz) walnuts, finely chopped
• 125g (5 oz) shelled pistachios finely chopped
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

For the syrup

• 250g (9oz) golden caster sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp orange blossom water

You will need

• a 17cm x 28cm (11in x 7in) roasting tin brushed with butter.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Melt the butter in a saucepan
2. Cut the sheets of filo in half Lay 6 sheets of filo pastry, one at a time, into the tray, brushing each sheet with butter before adding the next.
3. In a clean bowl, mix together the nuts, sugar and cinnamon and spread half the mixture over the pastry in the tray.
4. Add another layer of filo on top of the nut mixture, brushing each sheet with butter, as before. Then repeat with the remaining nuts finishing with layers of buttered pastry on top
5. Using a sharp knife, cut squares through the top layer of pastry.
6. Place baklava in the preheated oven for approximately 20 minutes, then decrease the oven temperature to 150C/300F/Gas 2 and cook for an additional half hour to 40 minutes, or until the pastry is slightly puffed and golden on top. Do not allow the top to burn. Remove and allow to cool slightly.
7. For the syrup, heat the sugar, 150ml (1/4 pint) water, lemon juice in a saucepan and cook over a medium heat until the sugar has melted and a syrup is formed. Add the orange blossom water
8. Pour the syrup over the baklava and leave to cool. Cut into squares and serve.