Baklava
 
Ingredients
  • 2 cups unsalted walnuts or pistachios
  • 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 roll or ½ pound phyllo dough, thawed *
  • ¾ cup salted butter, melted
  • 1¼ cup honey
  • 1½ Tablespoon lemon juice
  • 7 whole cloves
  • ½ cup water
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
  2. Pulse the walnuts and sugar in a foot processor about 20-30 times or until it is coarsely ground. Set aside.
  3. Unroll the phyllo dough and lay a damp paper towel over it through out to keep it from drying out. So the only time it should be uncovered is while you are pulling a sheet out.
  4. Brush a 9x13 inch ceramic or glass baking dish with some of the melted butter to grease it.
  5. Take one sheet of the phyllo dough and place it in the baking dish. Don't worry about wrinkles or tears. Brush the sheet with the melted butter using a pastry brush. Make sure the entire sheet gets some butter or else you will have dry patches.**
  6. Repeat the previous step until you have 12 sheets buttered in your pan.
  7. Spread the walnut mixture over the buttered sheets.
  8. Layer the rest of the phyllo sheets, buttering each sheet like in step #5.
  9. Cut the baklava into squares. (I did 3 width wise and 4 length wise.) Then cut each square diagonally so you should end up with 24 triangles.
  10. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. While the baklava is baking, make the syrup in the next step.
  11. Combine the honey, lemon juice, whole cloves, and water in a small saucepan. Cook on medium-low heat (stirring occasionally) until it boils and then reduce the heat to low to simmer (still stirring occasionally) while the baklava finishes baking.
  12. Immediately after the baklava comes out of the oven, fish the cloves out of the syrup mixture with a spoon and pour the syrup over the baked baklava. It will bubble a lot in the hot pan.
  13. Let cool.
Yield: 24 baklava triangles
Store in the refrigerator.
Notes
* Phyllo dough is sold in the freezer section of grocery stores and comes in a box with 2 rolls of it. So you will be using half of the package for this recipe.
**The brand of phyllo dough I buy comes in 9x15 inch sheets so I have a fold in the sheet to get it to fit. If the brand of phyllo dough you buy has the same issue, just be sure to butter the folded portion really well and rotate where in the pan the folded portion ends up.
Recipe by Birch Tree Baking at https://www.birchtreebaking.com/baklava/