UW-Stout Archives: Opa! Let's make baklava this weekend

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Opa! Let's make baklava this weekend

This semester we are featuring recipes from cookbooks located in the UW-Stout Archives Special Collections. The Special Collections are older, more rare, or Stout related books that were originally located in the UW-Stout Library’s main stacks collection. This past year we added a wealth of cookbooks to the special collections, and I scoured the shelves for recipes to bring the world of baking to your home during this time.

Recipes: Middle Eastern Cooking, 1976 cookbook

Let’s travel to Greece to create multi-layered Baklava, via Recipes: Middle Eastern Cooking, Foods of the World, Time-Life Books, TX725.M628N52 1976. We have a variety of the Food of the World cookbooks that feature recipes from a certain country or region. Discover more information about these cookbooks here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foods_of_the_World

I had the chance to travel to Italy and Greece over the 2007-2008 New Year’s Holiday as part of the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Marching Band. We traveled for 10 days and performed in Rome and Florence, Italy, and Athens, Greece. It was a great experience and besides trying new foods, such as gelato and baklava, and touring the cities, my favorite part was performing in St. Peter’s Square for the Pope on New Year’s Day.

Julie on top of Hotel Stanley, with Parthenon in background

Blugold Marching Band performing in Athens, Greece

Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece

Greek Islands

Baklava (Layered Pastry with Walnuts and Honey Syrup), p. 98

To make one 9 x 13 inch pastry

¾ lb. butter, cut into ¼ in. bits

½ cup vegetable oil

40 sheets filo pastry, each about 16 in. long and 12 in. wide

4 cups shelled walnuts pulverized in a blender, nut grinder, or mortar and pestle

Clarify the butter in a heavy saucepan or skillet: Melt the butter slowly over low heat without letting it brown, skimming off the foam as it rises to the surface. Remove the pan from the heat, let it rest for 2 or 3 minutes, then spoon off the clear butter and discard the milky solids at the bottom of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350* and stir the vegetable oil into the clarified butter. Using a pastry brush coat the bottom and sides of a 13 x 9 x 2 ½ in. baking dish with about 1 tbsp. of the mixture.

Fold a sheet of filo in half crosswise, lift it up gently and unfold it into the prepared dish. Press the pastry flat, fold down the excess around the sides and flatten it against the bottom. Brush the entire surface of the pastry lightly with the butter and oil mixture, and lay another sheet of filo on top, folding it down and buttering it in similar fashion. Sprinkle the pastry evenly with about 3 tbsp. of walnuts. Repeat to make 19 layers total. Spread the 2 remaining sheets of filo on top and brush the baklava with the rest of the remaining butter and oil mixture.

With a small, sharp knife score the top of the pastry with parallel diagonal lines about ½ inch deep and 2 inches apart, then cross them diagonally to form diamond shapes. Bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 300* and bake for 45 minutes longer, or until the top is crisp and golden brown.

SYRUP

1 ½ cups sugar

¾ cup water

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp. honey

While baklava is baking, make the syrup. Combine the sugar, water and lemon juice in a small saucepan and, stirring constantly, cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to high and, timing it from the moment the syrup boils, cook briskly, uncovered, for about 5 minutes, or until the syrup reaches a temperature of 220* on a candy thermometer. Remove pan from heat and stir in honey. Pour syrup into a bowl or pitcher and set aside.

When the baklava is done baking, remove from oven and pour syrup over it. Cool to room temperature and cut into diamond shaped pieces to serve.

If this venture seems daunting, like it did to me at first, here is a tutorial video to help you get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewjl_ZJ8onk

I have seen different variations of ingredients used for baklava, but the process for preparing it is essentially the same. This recipe calls for melting 3 sticks of butter and combining vegetable oil to it, which I think is extra work than is necessary. I have seen recipes where they just melt butter or spray cooking spray for in between the filo sheet layers. My butter did not have foam rise to the surface as it melted, it just melted. My butter and oil mixture got thick as it cooled, while I was assembling the layers. This recipe only has walnuts for the filling, but other recipes use seasonings, chocolate spread, hazelnuts and pistachios with the walnuts. I did not find filo pastry sheets at the grocery store, so I used four puff pastry sheets to layer, which are thicker, but worked just as well. It was in the oven about 15 minutes less than the recipe said (probably because of using puff pastry sheets, and my oven was preheating for a long time). I suggest using a large vs. a small saucepan to boil the syrup. My syrup boiled over and made a big, sticky mess on my stovetop. The baklava does taste good, with a sweet, nutty flavor. It tastes like I remember from Greece, but I ate one with chocolate filling before. Baklava is messy to make, so prepare for clean-up duty! Bon Appetit!