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Honey Baklava

Baklava, made with honey, walnuts, butter and crispy phillo dough is one of my very favorite treats. Once a year on my birthday, I allow myself any dessert, and baklava is my birthday star.

You would think that because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, this heaven in a pan would be abundant and easy to find. But it’s not. Yes, there are a couple of Mediterranean markets in my town that sell baklava, plus Costco and Trader Joe’s sell it briefly during the winter holidays. And it tastes ok, even if they mess it up with chocolate drizzle. (Chocolate on baklava is like if da Vinci had added a big pink bow to the Mona Lisa’s hair.) But the difference between store bought and homemade baklava is the difference between reading about an amazing kiss versus actually having an amazing kiss. In other words, no contest.

We have a burger place in the neighborhood that titles itself after a city in Greece. A few years ago, my sweet husband decided to surprise me with baklava from this restaurant for my birthday. We’d seen it on their menu but never tried it. After a great homemade dinner, everyone gathered and sang Happy Birthday to me over baklava. We took a first bite. Around the circle, you could see big eyes, then frowns on faces and all chewing ceased.  The chef must have been careless with their food storage because this baklava tasted like raw onions, through and through. Totally disgusting! It also was mushy and had a been-in-the-freezer-for-6-months quality.

At least one of my kids still brings up that birthday baklava debacle almost every time we drive by the restaurant. That was the year I decided to learn how to make my own baklava.

For my most recent birthday, I made a batch of baklava to share with my friends. My friend Marie paid me the ultimate compliment. She said that the ladies at her church, who’ve been sharing baklava with her her whole life, don’t make it as well as this recipe. Oh how my heart swelled!

This is not a recipe that you can make quickly. Be patient with the process. Buy the highest quality walnuts, honey and butter that you can find. The results are so rewarding and after you’ve tasted it, you won’t want to waste your time or calories on anything less.

Six simple ingredients, plus water and your own two hands make magic.

Butter a 9×13 baking pan. (For the curious, those are permanent ramekin circles in my pan. They happened after I baked pots de creme in a water bath. I’ll share yummy pots de creme in a future post!) Click here to see my favorite cake pan.

Use a food processor to finely chop the walnuts with cinnamon. Hand chopping is also an option. If you have to hand chop, ensure the walnuts are evenly and finely chopped. Click here to see my favorite food processor. 

This is what the walnuts should look like after being processed.

Next, set up a station for the phyllo dough. It takes time to assemble the layers of the baklava. During this time, paper thin phyllo dough dries out fast. Dried out phyllo dough is not good. To prevent this, dampen two kitchen towels and use them to sandwich the unrolled phyllo dough on your countertop. Tea towels are better for this job, but terry cloth towels get the job done too. Amazon has beautiful tea towels here.

Chances are that the phyllo dough will not fit perfectly in your pan. No worries. You can cut it.

My linear-thinking husband would probably do some really smart measuring and mathy stuff here. But me, I just lay the phyllo dough in the pan and start cutting. Save a few of the excess ends in case you accidentally rip a full sheet later on. The excess pieces can be used for repairs.

The first phyllo sheet goes into the greased pan and is brushed with melted butter. This first sheet is the hardest to place. It may be a little wonky and that’s ok. Use your fingers and the brush to flatten it as much as possible and fill the corners.

After you have 10 buttered phyllo layers in place, add the walnut and cinnamon mixture.

Evenly distribute the walnut-cinnamon mixture. Time for more layers!

Here I’m using one of the cut, end pieces that I saved earlier to make a repair to a larger phyllo sheet that I accidentally ripped.

Once you’ve added all of the layers and all of the walnut cinnamon mixture, it’s time to cut the baklava into pieces. This is a dessert that is cut before it’s baked to allow heat during cooking time to create crunch on the edges of each piece. I found that using a knife with a serrated edge worked best.  I was able to saw through the layers during cutting without pulling everything apart.

Again, with the mathy skills. This is a place where you can measure and be precise so that you’ll end up with same-sized pieces, and very few oddball end-pieces. The finished diamond shaped pieces are so pretty.  But then I realized that I was spending too much time trying to maximize and worrying about where to cut. Instead I just cut where I wanted to. The result was 25 full pieces and some weird ends. This isn’t like baking cookies where they all have to be the same size or you end up with some doughy cookies and some hard and over cooked. Every piece of baklava in this pan came out with the same texture, doneness and deliciousness, even the weird ends.

Now for the sizzle step! Once the baklava comes out of the oven, pour the cooled honey and sugar syrup over the top. You’ll hear a sizzle as the syrup creates magic in the hot phyllo and walnut layers.

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Honey Baklava

Baklava is sweet, crunchy, buttery and filled with walnuts. The flavors of sweet honey syrup mixed with savory walnuts all sandwiched between phyllo dough is one of the best and most satisfying desserts on the planet. 

Course Dessert
Keyword baklava, honey, phyllo dough, walnuts
Prep Time 35 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 50 minutes
Servings 26 people

Ingredients

  • 16 oz package phyllo dough, thawed Set phyllo dough package on counter to thaw about 1 hour before you're ready to use it.
  • 4 cups walnuts, chopped finely
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1 cup white, granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1 1/2 cups butter, melted + more for buttering the pan
  • 1/4 cup pistachios, crushed if desired for garnish

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 F degrees. Butter the inside of a 9x13 baking pan. 

  2. Using a food processor or by hand, finely chop walnuts. Add in the cinnamon and pulse or mix to incorporate. 

  3. Melt 1 1/4 cups butter. 

  4. Unfold and lay the thawed phyllo dough between two damp kitchen towels in order to keep it from drying out. You will be working with one sheet of phyllo dough at a time. Most 16 oz. packages of phyllo dough are divided into two sleeves inside of the box. Use all of the dough from both sleeves.  

  5. If your phyllo dough is too long, trim the stack so that the pieces will fit into the pan. 

For Assembly

  1. Assembly Step #1  Lay one sheet of phyllo dough in the bottom of the buttered pan. Brush with melted butter using a pastry brush. One at a time, add 9 more sheets of phyllo dough, buttering each sheet as it's added to the pan, until you have a stack of 10 buttered sheets. 

  2. Assembly Step #2  Top with 3/4 cup of the walnut cinnamon mixture and evenly distribute. 

  3. Assembly Step #3 Top the walnut layer with 5 more sheets of phyllo dough, buttering each one as they are added. 

  4. Assembly Step #4 Top with another 3/4 cup of the walnut cinnamon mixture and evenly distribute. 

  5. Assembly Step #5  Repeat assembly steps 3 & 4, three more times. 

  6. Assembly Step #6 (Final)   By now, you should have used all of the walnut mixture and almost all of the phyllo dough, and have a pan with the walnut cinnamon mixture on top. Finish by covering the nut mixture with 10 more sheets of phyllo dough, buttering each one as you go. Drizzle any remaining butter on top of the last sheet of phyllo dough. 

  7. Cut the baklava into strips the length of the pan and approximately 1 1/2 inches wide. 

  8. Then cut diagonally to create diamond shaped pieces. This will yield approximately 26 pieces. 

  9. Bake in a 325 F degree oven for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. When finished, the top will be golden brown. 

For The Syrup

  1. While the baklava is baking in the oven, make the syrup. 

  2. Combine the sugar, honey and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. Check to see that the sugar is no longer grainy and has completely melted. Be careful not to let this burn. Then reduce heat and simmer for 4 to 5 minutes, still stirring frequently. Remove pan from heat and allow to cool completely. 

To Finish

  1. Once baklava has finished cooking in the oven, remove the pan from the oven and place on a wire rack. Immediately pour the cooled syrup over the hot baklava. You will hear it sizzle. Allow the baklava to cool completely before serving. Sprinkle with crushed pistachios for color and garnish if desired.