My husband spent a summer in Greece when he was at Stanford (Yes he’s that smart:) and ever since then his favorite dessert has been Baklava! He was quite excited when I told him that he would be taste testing a few 4 ingredient recipes! When people think about making Baklava, they assume it’s really hard. In fact, it is quite easy when you use pre-made phyllo (or filo) dough. Interestingly enough Greek Baklava is made with walnuts, white sugar and honey while Middle Eastern Baklava is usually made with pistachios and white sugar, but no honey. We are going more with a Greek version, but with only brown sugar (which has a little more flavor) because our goal is always 4 ingredients! The dark brown sugar produced marvelous results! Here’s what you will need:
An entire box of phyllo dough (Athens makes one with 2 pkgs. of 20 paper thin sheets.)
1 cup + 1 cup of dark brown sugar
5 cups of chopped walnuts
2 sticks of salted butter (I know, a ton of butter but you will be making a whole pan:)
Step 1. Thaw the frozen dough in the frig overnight.
Step 2. Pre-heat oven to 350. Combine the walnuts and a cup of the dark brown sugar in a food processor and pulse until the nuts are in very tiny pieces.
Step 3. Using a pastry brush, generously brush melted butter onto the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan. Carefully place 10 sheets of the phyllo dough in the bottom of the pan and generously brush the top layer with butter. Add 10 more sheets and again generously brush the top layer with butter. (You may need to use kitchen scissors and cut one end of the sheets if your pan isn’t long enough — the sheets should fit perfectly.)
Step 4. Evenly spread half of the nut/brown sugar mixture on top, then add 5 sheets of pastry and repeat with butter and second half of the mixture.
Step 5. Add the last 15 sheets and brush again with lots of the butter. Finally with a very sharp knife carefully cut 1 & 1/2 inch squares or cut about 3 inch squares and cut a diagonal line in each square (see above) making sure to go all the way through the bottom layer of pastry.
Step 6. Bake at 350 for 35 to 45 minutes until golden brown all over.
Step 7. While the baklava is baking, in a small sauce pan combine and bring to a boil the second cup of dark brown sugar and 1/3 cup of water. Turn the mixture to low and simmer for 10 min. stirring occasionally, then let cool in the frig.
Step 8. Once the Baklava is done and still hot, pour the brown sugar syrup over the top and into all the cracks. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream. Super delicious!
Step 4.
Step 5.
Step 8.
Greek Weddings
If you haven’t been to a Greek wedding you should try to get yourself invited to one:) A few summers ago I went to one, and it did not disappoint. A lot of the service was in Greek and at one point the bride and groom who wore crowns were tethered to each other and followed the aged priest in a bit of a dance around the very large altar. At the reception everyone really did toast saying “opa” and danced in a huge circle. And to top things off, at midnight they brought out the best beef tenderloin that you have ever had. Opa to that!!!