Turkey · Dessert · Hard
Baklava
Rome's most famous pasta. Silky egg and Pecorino sauce clinging to every strand, studded with crisp guanciale. No cream, ever.
The whole recipe in 60 seconds
Baklava, in 5 ideas
- Keep phyllo covered. It dries in minutes and then it cracks instead of folding. A damp towel over the stack, always.
- Butter every single sheet. Tedious and non-negotiable. Dry layers bake up leathery instead of shattering.
- Cut before baking. The top crisps in the oven and will shatter if you try to cut it after. Cut clean through to the pan.
- Chop nuts fine, not powder. You want texture in every bite. Dust gives you paste.
- Wait the full 4 hours. Warm baklava is a mess. The rest lets the syrup distribute and the layers set.
What you need
Ingredients
- 1 lb phyllo dough, thawed
- 3 cups pistachios, finely chopped
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup honey
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 cinnamon stick
How to make it
Directions
- Make the syrup first so it cools. Simmer the sugar, honey, water, lemon juice, and cinnamon stick for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely.
- Heat the oven to 350F. Toss the pistachios with the ground cinnamon.
- Brush a 9 by 13 pan with butter. Lay in 10 sheets of phyllo, brushing each with butter. Work fast and keep the stack covered with a damp towel so it does not dry out.
- Spread a third of the pistachios over. Add 8 more buttered sheets, another third of nuts, 8 more sheets, the last third of nuts, then 10 final buttered sheets. Butter the top generously.
- Cut all the way through into diamonds or squares before baking. If you cut after, the top shatters.
- Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until deeply golden and crisp.
- Pour the cool syrup evenly over the hot baklava. It will sizzle. Cool at least 4 hours so the syrup soaks through every layer.
Cool syrup, hot baklava. This is the rule. Hot syrup on hot pastry makes it soggy. The temperature shock is what keeps the layers crisp while the syrup sinks in.