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samedi 15 mars 2014

What Is Baklava And How Is It Made?

By Luisa Sharpe


Baklava is the name given to a dessert that comes from the Middle East. It is also widely found in the Mediterranean and certain parts of Asia. It dates back to the Ottoman Empire. This pastry dessert is very dense in texture and sweet in taste. Because of how rich it is, it comes divided into small portions.

It is essentially made up of multiple layers of filo pastry with a filling of honey or syrup and also chopped nuts. Though it is prepared in a large pan, it is cut up into much smaller bite-sized portions in different shapes prior to baking. The most common shapes for it are triangles, rectangles or parallelograms.

To begin with, a number of phyllo dough layers are placed in a baking pan, with melted butter brushed on each layer to separate them. After a few layers, chopped nuts are sprinkled over the pastry to cover it; pistachios, hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds are all possible options. This layer of nuts is then covered with another set of phyllo dough layers.

After cooking the pastry, the syrup is immediately poured over the entire thing so that it can settle into the dessert. This is where the very intense sweetness of the dessert comes from. Syrup used can have honey in it, but also rosewater or other fruit extracts. Some regions in Turkey top the dessert with ice cream that has a milk flavor in the summer time, or another topping that is known as 'kaymak'.

Different countries in the region prepare it using different methods or ingredients. This could be for a number of various reasons, including religious. For example, in Greece, the dessert traditionally has thirty three layers of the pastry dough. The significance of this number is that it corresponds to the age of Jesus Christ.

Paklava is the name given to the same dessert in Armenia. There, ingredients like cinnamon and cloves are also included. Sour cream and also vanilla are just two of the many ingredients used in Georgia. Egg yolks can be used to prepare the pastry dough in Albania. The Persian style of this dessert does not taste as rich or sweet as in the Middle East.

It is possible to buy phyllo dough in the frozen section of the grocery store. While there are many variations on how to make the dessert, it is not hard to make. Start by placing a couple of sheets of the dough in a pan that has been buttered and cover these sheets with melted butter. Repeat this process three more times. Once there are 8 layers of dough, cover the layers with a mixture of chopped nuts and cinnamon. Place two more layers of dough over the nuts, butter them and add more nuts.

Finish the pastry with six to eight layers of dough on top. Cut into diamonds and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for fifty minutes. To make the syrup, boil together a cup of water and a cup of white sugar. Add to the mixture one teaspoon of vanilla extract and also a half cup of honey. Let it simmer for twenty minutes then pour over the pastry as soon as it comes out of the oven. Serve at room temperature.




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