This time Daring Baker’s are challenged to make Baklava with their own home made phyllo sheets, that’s quite challenging isn’t. As we know Baklava is purely a Mediterranean delight made with layers of phyllo pastry and assortment of nuts, soaked in cinnamon honey syrup. I tweaked the recipe a bit and made an Indianized filling with khoya and flavoured the syrup with cardamom and saffron.
Special Instructions: Makes 20 to 25 rolls, Time required: About 3 hours
Ingredients:
For phyllo:
Plain flour- 250 g
Water- 150 ml
Oil- 45 ml
Salt-1/2 tspFor cashew filling:
Cashew nuts- 100 g
Cardamom- 1
Sugar- 1 tbsp
Butter- 1 tbspFor khoya filling:
Khoya- 100 g
Sugar- 1/2 tbspNote:
Khoya is made using milk in a large pan. If you can’t find khoya use ricotta cheese or paneer.For syrup:
Honey- 3/4 cup
Sugar- 3/4 cup
Water- 3/4 cup
Cardamom- 2
Saffron- a pinch
Lemon juice- 1 tspButter( melted)- 150 g( for brushing)
Instructions:
Prepare the phyllo dough:
Add the flour, salt and oil in a mixing bowl, slowly add the water. Using a dough tool or hand knead it into smooth elastic dough. Once the dough comes together smoothly, knead it again for 10 to 15 minutes. Cover the bowl with a cling film and let it rest for minimum of 2 hours.
Prepare the filling:
Cashew filling:
Dry roast the cashew nuts in a pan until it gets heated. Add the cashew nut, cardamom, sugar and butter to a food processor and pulse it until it looks like a coarse powder. Set it aside.
Khoya filling:
Mix the khoya and sugar together like a dough.
Roll the phyllo:
Divide the dough into 12 to 14 equal size balls. Cover your work surface with plenty of flour, roll each ball into as thin as possible, until it looks quite transparent. Roll out the remaining dough in the same way.
Form the rolls:
Take a sheet of phyllo pastry, brush it with melted butter and place another sheet on top it. Make the khoya filling like a log and place it inside the pastry. Roll out the pastry into a log. Do the same with the cashew filling. Place the rolls in a baking tray, brush it with melted butter on top. Cut the log into 1 inch slices.
Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius and bake it for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top looks golden brown in colour.
Pour the warm syrup on top of the rolls and let it soak for 5 to 6 hours. Since the filling is quite sweet, a little syrup would be sufficient. You don’t have to drench these rolls with syrup like regular baklava’s.
To make the syrup:
Add all the syrup ingredients in a pan and bring it to boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
