Monday night was filo fandango night!! Making a quick exit from work it was an earlier train home than usual to get a start on this potentially catastrophic bake.
Time consuming prep
The ingredients for this week took a lot longer to sort out as I had to do two different flavours. In the end it was taking too much time so I just ended up putting the ingredients on the table without measuring the, so sorry for the slapdash photo.
The filo was the first thing to get made as it needed time to rest before being rolled and stretched. Looking for a recipe for the filo called for some more in depth research than just going to the bbc site. Even though they asked the bakers on the show to make their own pastry, the recipes the bbc site say to use ready made, cheeky! Eventually I found one I felt happy with, all be it substituting red wine vinegar for white wine.
Choosing to use the quicker less manual method, the kenwood chef was bought down from the cupboard to work its magic. I don’t think my kenwood has been used quite so much as I have in the last month! All the ingredients for the filo were emptied and poured into the mixer and left on a medium setting to knead and combine for 8 minutes. When the time was up I was left with a silky smooth dough, which I hope is enough to make two batches of baklava. With the dough made, I left it to rest while I got on with the two fillings.
Nutty, nutty, nuttiness
The first flavour I have gone with is pistachio, rose and cardamom. I know that Richard baked this on the show, but it us classic and I love pistachios. The syrup consisted of sugar, honey, water and peppercorns, all boiled together until the sugar is dissolved and a syrup consistency is reached. Once I was happy with the thickness of the syrup, the heat was turned off, the rose water was added and it was left to cool.
The pistachios needed finely chopping in a food processor, along with some icing sugar and ground cardamom. I don’t keep ground cardamom in my cupboard, I only have whole pods, so a little elbow grease was needed to get the ground spice I wanted. After one final whiz of the machine, the pistachio filling was ready
Next it was the Apricot and almond filling, with spiced orange blossom syrup. I know that this ingredients picture I also included walnuts, but after revising the recipe and the amount, I decided to just go wight the almonds. The almond were processed in the same way as the pistachios, with a bit of icing sugar and the spices. I then added the chopped dried apricots and gave them a final blend together in the processor to ensure there everything was well combined.
The orange syrup for this was the same base and process as before but instead of the peppercorns, it was a cinnamon stick and some orange zest. Once the thicker syrup had formed, the orange flower blossom water was added and it was left to cool
Tradition vs Modern
Now that the fillings and syrups were made, the more complicated stage of the bake could commense. I removed the rested dough from the bowl and divided it into 6, thereby giving me slightly more manageable piece to roll out. Removing one of the dough ball for the rolling I covered the rest with a damp tea towel to stop them from drying out. In preparation for the rolling I had covered the dining table with a tablecloth and weighed it down by tying a dumbbell weigh to each corner with a piece of ribbon. I was my hope that his would stop the tablecloth from moving around….not that it did. In my research into making baklava and rolling out filo pastry, I had seen that a lot of people used a long wooden pole for the rolling, much longer than you average rolling pin. As I was trying to be authentic as possible I asked my dad to pick me up something similar on his morning trip to the hardware store. He ended coming back with something slightly longer than requested so there was a bit of hacksaw action to get it right. Now armed with my regular rolling pin, and the longer wooden pole I started to go to work on the dough ball waiting on my floured tablecloth.
I started with the regular rolling pin to get the dough to a shape that was larger and more suitable to longer pole. from the videos it was clear that the rolling with the longer pin takes practice but I thought I would give it a go. The pastry needed to be well dusted with flour and then almost rolled up onto the pin. The next step was to roll the pin, with the pastry on, thereby stretching and rolling the dough at the same time. Practice is definitely needed of this and mine just got in a mess and ended up sticking to itself. Instead of continuing with this method I just use both the rolling pins in the more traditional method, and my hands to stretch it out further. There were a few hole at the edge and the sides were not as neat as I would have like, but that is nothing that a knife can’t fix.
Baklava 1.0
With the first ball rolled out I divided it into three rectangle and laid it into the pre-greased tin, brushed it with melted butter, and placed the next layer on top, until all 23 were in the tin. I covered the tin with another damp cloth to prevent the pastry from drying out and got on with the rest of the dough. In total I had about 4 layers in the tin before adding the first of 3 layers of almond mix and pastry. Once the final layer of nuts was added I topped it off with another 5 layers of pastry, along with more melted butter. As you can see this version of baklava was cut in the tin to the shape of triangles which meant the pistachio would have to be something different.
Baklava 2.0
The process for the second batch of baklava was the same again for the pastry, but instead of cutting it into three before filling it was left as one long piece. I decided to go the concertina roll for this baklava which meant sprinkling the filling in a long heaped line along the longest side of the pastry. The next stage of the roll was a little trickier than just layering the pastry. The technique to getting this style of baklava is to roll the baklava around a stick and then push the ends towards the middle creating a squashed roll. Ideally I would have used a long piece of dole for the start of the roll but in the a science of it I used two chop sticks instead.
Once it was rolled up, and squashed, which was easier without the sticks, I had to trim the edges so that it would fit inside the greased tin. This is why there are a few oddly shaped rolls I the picture below. Once all of the rolls were made they were butted again and placed in the oven, along with be almond triangles for 25-30mins, giving me enough time to eat some dinner!
Golden parcels
When the time was up and the baklava had a nice golden colour they were removed from the oven. Once out, they were left in the tin and he now cooled syrup was poured over the top. It was important to ensure that every individual piece was covered to ensure consistency in each piece, in both flavour as well as stickiness!
I left them to cool ovenight so that they would cool completely, sitting in and absorbing the syrup as they did so. In the morning I removed the baklava from their respective tins and recut them. I’m not sure why, but I forgot to pre cut the rolls, which meant I was in danger of crumbling them with my knife, but luckily they were ok, maybe the pastry is too thick?!
Small things
There are a few things that I will do differently when I make this again.
- Sieve the orange syrup, even though it looks pretty, the the left over rind enhances the orange flavour and masks some of the others
- Grind the cardamom finer, as in some pieces the flavour is stronger than in others.
- Remember to pre-cut all the piece before baking as it’ll helps the syrup to soak into the middle
