Making Baklava

If you love Baklava as much as we do in our family you would know how expensive this treat is to buy all the time and how incredibly difficult and time consuming to make! My dad has found a way to make this delicious treat at home - the trick of course is using the pastry sheet instead of making it yourself. It can’t be any pastry sheet but it has to be Fillo Dough size 4! In our city he found it in a Syrian supermarket that carried middle eastern items. The following images are from one weekend he demonstrated the process with two different styles to us and I took all the pictures in the world to capture everything I could to try it later myself

The first style is the square shape, all you need is a rectangle baking pan or Pyrex some crushed walnuts (my mom has allergy to walnut so we use almonds) and crushed pistachios and melted unsalted butter. Brush some butter at the bottom of the pan and then oh the first layer of the dough then brush a layer of butter over and then lay over another layer of dough. Repeat for 5 layers then cover the later with crushed walnut or nuts if your choice and then cover up another 5 layer till you finish. Brush the top layer with melted butter and cut into squares and then bake till it’s golden. When it’s done pour over the sugar syrup (boil 2 cups of sugar in 1 cup of water + 2 teaspoon of rose water) and decorate with pistachios.

​The second style is the rolled out dough in two different shapes. He used a tiny round stick and rolled in the dough when down he made a circle and lay on the pan. For the second long roll style he rolled the edge of the dough and then stopped and. Added a line of crushed pistachios and rolled the dough over it and lay it on the pan, cut them and cover them all in melted butter. When they are baked and hot pour over the syrup and let it cool.