Baklava

Baklava is a greek/turkish dessert which is a sweet pastry made of layers of filo pastry, filled with nuts in between and soak with sugar syrup. Hubby absolutely loves this dessert and every time he sees it on display at any cafe he never resists the urge to buy them. I've been wanting to make this for a while but after reading how difficult filo is to work with I abandon the idea of making it as it seems more convenient to buy. So what make me change my mind? Well I had all this different nuts in my pantry and there were a little bit left in each pack and thought what would be a good recipe that could use all this nuts up, then a little bulb went off in my head. Baklava! 

Mixture of ground nuts

Sheets of filo pastry

Filling:

• 1 pound of combination of nuts (Walnuts, pistachio, almonds) use whatever you like 
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter melted
• 1 pound filo pastry 

Syrup:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup honey
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 cinnamon sticks 
• zest from one lemon 
• pinch of ground cloves
• pinch of ground cardamom 

Best to cut the pastry before you bake it

Method:

• Start by making the syrup so it has enough time to cool. Combine all the syrup ingredients in a saucepan.
• Cook over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to low and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Remove the cinnamon sticks and lemon zest and leave to cool.
• Finely chop the nuts with a knife or food processor. In a bowl add the cinnamon and salt to the chopped nuts and combined. 
• Melt the butter in the microwave. Using a pastry brush, lightly coat a 13 by 19-inch baking dish with the butter.
• Open the package of filo pastry and place the thin sheets on a clean work surface. Measure the filo sheets to fit your baking dish. Trim the excess off with a sharp knife and discard the scraps.
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees

• Place one sheet of the filo pastry in the baking dish, and lightly brush with melted butter. Repeat this process with 6 more sheets for a total of 7 layers brushing each layer with the melted butter.
• On top of the 7th filo pastry spread with 3/4 cup of the nut mixture evenly. Repeat with 7 more sheets of filo, buttering each layer with melted butter and topping with nuts on the 7th layer. Continue this process until you have used up all the nut mixture. Layer another 7 sheets of filo on the last nut layer.
• Use a very sharp knife to cut thru the layers diagonally to form a diamond shape.
• Bake the Baklava until golden brown approximately 40 minutes
• Remove the Baklava from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Drizzle the cool syrup over the warm Baklava. Allow to soak in for several hours or overnight before serving.

Well after trying this recipe out I realise it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be, I just had to prove myself wrong that whatever I put my mind to I can do. And I get to enjoy the fruits of my labour with a nice cup of turkish tea, ok no I do not have turkish tea but it would be nice if I did.

Greek Walnut Cake with Creme Anglaise

Most of this recipes I have made a few weeks ago but never had a chance to post them quick enough on my blog as I have had some issues to deal with. This is another recipe from My Kitchen Rules 2014 series which was made by the greek twins that received very good comments and high scores from Pete Evans and Manu Fidel. If it is good enough for their taste bud then it's worth me trying the recipe out.

Ingredients

Cake:

Melted butter, to grease
60g (½ cup) crushed walnuts, toasted
Icing sugar, to serveCake
140g (2 cups) fresh breadcrumbs
150g (1 cup) plain flour
300g (2½ cups) finely chopped walnuts, toasted
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
6 eggs, separated
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
220g (1 cup) caster sugar
1 orange, zested, juiced
2 tbs brandy

Crème Anglaise
400ml milk
200ml pouring cream
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
4 egg yolks
110g (½ cup) caster sugar

Sugar syrup
220g (1 cup) caster sugar
2 cinnamon quills
1 lemon, zested, juiced

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 20cm x 30cm cake pan with melted butter and line with baking paper, extending over longer side by 5cm.
2. To make cake, combine breadcrumbs, flour, walnuts, baking powder and spices in a large bowl. Set aside. Place egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat (on medium speed) for 2 minutes to soft peaks. Set aside.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar (on medium speed) until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks, orange zest and juice, and brandy. Stir in breadcrumb mixture, then fold in egg whites. Spoon mixture into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
4. To make crème anglaise, place milk, cream and vanilla seeds in a medium heavy-based saucepan over medium heat and cook, without boiling, until hot.
5. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a medium bowl until combined, then whisking continuously, gradually add hot milk mixture to egg yolk mixture until combined. Return mixture to same pan over medium-low heat. Using a wooden spoon, stir for 7 minutes or until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. 
6. Strain mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl.
7. To make sugar syrup, place all ingredients and 500ml (2 cups) water in a medium saucepan over low heat and stir for 3 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Simmer for 10 minutes or until reduced by half. Pour hot syrup over hot cake in pan, then set aside to allow cake to absorb syrup.
8. Slice cake and place on serving plates. Dust with sifted icing sugar, then pour over a little crème anglaise. Serve with remaining crème anglaise to the side.

Unfortunately this time I was so excited to get into the baking of this cake that I negelcted to take pictures of the steps I took but if I do ever make this again I'll be sure to take pictures and upload it here and update the blog.