Mary Jo McMillin's Rolled Baklava
These delicious Greek pastry treats keep in a covered container for weeks on end, that’s if you can resist…
PREP TIME
20
MINUTES
COOKING TIME
20
MINUTES
Ingredients
175g walnuts finely ground (use a food processor)
3 tbsp caster sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
175g filo pastry sheets
(6-7 sheets about)
110g butter, melted
2 tbsp olive oil
For the syrup
175g granulated sugar
175ml water
1 tsp crushed cardamom pods (optional)
cinnamon stick
strip lemon rind
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp rosewater (optional)
1 x 20.5cm square tin
1 wooden dowel or long chopstick
Method
First prepare the syrup. Boil the sugar and water with the cardamom, cinnamon stick and lemon rind to form a thick syrup.
Add the lemon juice, honey and rosewater if using. Set aside to cool.
NOTE: for absorption, cool syrup must be poured over the hot pastry.
Mix the ground walnuts withthe caster sugar and the ground cinnamon. Melt the butter with the olive oil. Butter the tin.
Heat the oven to 200˚ C/Gas mark 6. On a clean counter or marble slab, brush one sheet of filo with melted butter. Place one-sixth of the walnut mixture in a row, 2.5cm from the buttered edge of the shorter end of the filo sheet. Place the dowel next to the nuts. Roll up the pastry like a Swiss roll keeping the dowel inside. When rolled, scrunch the pastry into a ruffled shape.
Remove the dowel and place the scrunched roll in the buttered tin. Repeat with the remaining filo. Once all the rolls are in the baking dish, brush with butter, cut through them at 2.5cm intervals.(It is important to cut the baklava before baking).
Bake in the heated oven for 10 minutes; reduce the heat to 180˚C/gas mark 4 and continue baking for 20 minutes or until golden on all sides. Remove from the oven, pour the cool syrup over the hot pastry, and listen to the syrup sing as it is absorbed.
Allow to cool and serve at room temperature.
