Baklava

A long long time ago I attempted baklava and failed miserably. Second attempt many years later yielded a better version, but still more improvements needed. And it is entirely my fault, not the recipes. So for future reference do not use a cast iron roasting pan for this recipe as it tends to continue cooking long after you have taken it out of the oven. Lesson learnt the hard way. If I had used a normal thin roasting pan I'd say it would have been fabulous. None the less, it was edible and better than I expected so all in all, still a good one.



I went with this recipe here from Lifestyle Food.
I omitted the orange flower water because a) I didn't know what it was b) I didn't know where to buy it c) she said optional.....

Another note to remember - buy already shelled pistachios!!!
These babies took me over an hour to shell.
By 240g I gave up and chucked in 60g of almonds to make up the rest of the 300g I needed

I liked that I had some rather large pieces of nuts and then some that were ground to a pulp (it's all about texture right? Let's go with that)

And the fun part - layering the filo pastry and brushing it with melted butter.
You need to be really quick here. No time for photos for every layer.....
5 layers of buttered filo pastry then the scattering of nuts

Skip a few repeated steps and here I am trimming the edges

All trimmed and cut into diagonal pieces ready for baking
The syrup before I boiled it

The syrup after being boiled for around 15mins

Voila!
Off to a good mates Lebanese themed dinner housewarming :)