Georgia’s Baklava

Course
Dessert
Cuisine
Greek
Georgia’s Baklava

Caramelised, deeply aromatic, nutty, crispy and chewy… Georgia’s baklava is an absolute eating treasure! The use of almost half a litre of extra virgin olive oil in a tray of this baklava leads to next-level gastronomy. Try it and you’ll understand.

Georgia Todd takes over the Kali Orexi kitchen to share the baklava recipe she has been perfecting for years. Georgia was born in Greece, in the little village of Kato Vasiliki near Nafpaktos, and the whole family hails from there. A people person who loves going out for Greek food, she also loves perfecting recipes – and this is the one everyone asks her for.

Georgia’s tips: make the syrup first so it is completely cool by the time the baklava comes out of the oven, be generous with the olive oil, and leave the drenched baklava to rest overnight so every layer of fillo drinks in the syrup.

Ingredients

  • For the syrup you will need…
  • 1½ cups water
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 2 heaped tbsp honey
  • For the nut mixture you will need…
  • 100g blanched almonds
  • 500g walnuts
  • 2 tsp ground cloves
  • 2 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 generous handful of fine breadcrumbs (about 45g)
  • 2 generous handfuls of sugar (about 75g)
  • For the baklava you will need…
  • 2 packets fillo pastry
  • Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) for drizzling the pan and sprinkling the layers
  • 400ml extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) for ladling over the top
  • A 30 x 35cm baking pan and baking paper

Method

  1. Making the syrup
  2. Add the water, sugar and 1 heaped tsp of ground cinnamon to a saucepan
  3. Mix well, till the sugar dissolves
  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer
  5. Continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the back of a spoon is coated with a slightly thickened, sticky syrup
  6. Take the syrup off the heat and set it aside to cool (the lemon juice and honey go in later)
  7. Preparing the nut mixture
  8. Chop the blanched almonds coarsely in a food processor
  9. Add the walnuts and chop more finely, till smaller pieces remain
  10. Place the chopped nuts in a medium bowl
  11. Add the ground cloves, 2 heaped tsp of ground cinnamon, the breadcrumbs and the sugar
  12. Combine well
  13. Preparing the pan
  14. Line a 30 x 35cm pan with overhanging baking paper, both lengthways and widthways
  15. Preparing the baklava
  16. Lay a packet of fillo sheets on your work surface and place your pan on top of the fillo sheets
  17. Score and cut the fillo to the size of your pan; keep the small off-cut pieces and set the fillo aside
  18. GENEROUSLY drizzle the base of the baking pan with EVOO
  19. Lay down 2 large fillo sheets and sprinkle with EVOO
  20. Repeat till you have about 14 layers of fillo, sprinkling with EVOO on every second layer
  21. For some of the layers, use the small fillo pieces, lining them up to create a larger sheet
  22. Spread half of the nut mixture evenly across the pan
  23. Lay another 14 fillo layers down, just as before – sprinkling with EVOO on every second layer and using up both the small and large fillo pieces again
  24. At some point you will need to prep the second packet of fillo pastry, cutting it to size the same way
  25. Spread the remaining half of the nut mixture evenly across the pan
  26. Again lay another 14 fillo layers down, just as before
  27. Scoring the baklava
  28. Score the wider side into 5 strips of equal width
  29. Turn the pan lengthways and score the fillo in half, then score each half in half again
  30. Score each square on the diagonal, to make triangles
  31. Preparing the EVOO
  32. Gently heat 400ml of EVOO till it just reaches smoking point, then remove from heat
  33. Ladle the hot EVOO evenly across the top of the baklava – be careful, it’s hot!
  34. Baking the baklava
  35. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C fan-forced for about 35 minutes, until deep golden-brown
  36. Finishing the syrup
  37. While the baklava bakes, add the lemon juice and honey to the cooled syrup and mix thoroughly
  38. Drenching the baklava
  39. Once baked, remove the baklava from the oven
  40. Ladle the cool syrup evenly across the hot baklava
  41. Leave the baklava to rest overnight, so all of the syrup is absorbed into the layers of fillo
  42. Serving the baklava
  43. The next day, lift the baklava out of the pan using the baking paper, cut along the score lines and serve
  44. Kali Orexi + γεια στα χέρια σου!

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