Recipe: Yummy Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava

Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava. Greek Baklava at Maria's is Truly a DESSERT OF THE GODS! Find out the TRICK to a buttery-flaky phyllo dough with layers of ground walnuts, cinnamon & cloves. Find this Pin and more on Sweets oh how I love to bake by melissa stapp.

Baklava uses phyllo dough stacked with honey and nuts to make a sweet Mediterranean dessert that everyone will love. Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. You can cook Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava using 15 ingredients and 14 steps. Here is how you achieve it.

Ingredients of Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava

1. You need of Dough.
2. You need 2 box of Phyllo Dough.
3. You need 1 of Very Sharp Knife without serrated edges.
4. You need of Filling.
5. It's 2 lb of Walnuts.
6. Prepare 2 tbsp of Sugar.
7. It's 2 tbsp of Cinnamon.
8. It's of Spreading between layers.
9. It's 3 stick of Unsalted Sweet Melted Butter.
10. You need 1 of Cooking Brush.
11. Prepare of Sugar Water Topping.
12. It's 2 1/2 cup of Water.
13. You need 1 1/2 cup of Sugar.
14. You need 5 of Whole Cloves.
15. Prepare 1/4 tsp of Pure Vanilla.

Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo pastry. It's usually filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey. Turkey, Greece and Lebanon may claim baklava as their own, but who created this layered treat? Baklava (Baghlava), this popular dessert is made in different parts of the world with some slight variations.

Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Chop up walnuts really fine add the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and mix together well and set aside..
3. Use a 1 inch to 1.5 inch thick, flat wide baking pan at least 18"x14" if you don't have one that size you can cut sheets to fit your pan. cutting the sheets all together helps cut down prep time..
4. Grease the bottom of the pan with cooking brush a light thin coating of melted butter..
5. For a thin crust use four sheets on bottom of pan. For a thick crust on bottom use 8 sheets. after placing the sheets on the bottom of the pan with a cooking brush, coat the last sheet on top with the melted butter.
6. Sprinkle a thin layer of the walnut mix to the buttered sheets..
7. Add 4 sheets again and butter the last top sheet again and add again a thin layer of walnut mix. do these steps with both boxes until all sheets are used. but do not butter the very last sheet on top..
8. Cutting the Baklava is easier when top is not greased..
9. After cutting the Baklava use the brush to gently grease the top with the melted butter..
10. Bake Baklava in middle of oven for 20 to 30 min depending on your oven. or until golden brown on top..
11. While the Baklava is baking, you can make your Sugar water on the stove top..
12. Add the water, sugar, cloves, and vanilla and let it boil until slightly thick. for about 20 min on medium heat stirring occasionally if not slightly thick add 5 more min to heating. if needed a larger amount of Sugar water just use double the ingredients..
13. When Baklava is done pour sugar water with spoon into cracks of the cut lines to evenly coat baklava while its still hot. both baklava and sugar water need to be hot for this process. but not boiling hot, 1.5 cups worth of cooked sugar water should be good for a whole pan. but if you like it slightly moist use 2 cups of cooked sugar water..
14. Enjoy.

It has layers and layers of flaky pastry surrounding nuts and spices and sweetened with an fragrant syrup. I make mine with almond and walnut filling. Baklava, or Baghlava as we call it in Farsi. It was the honey syrup that convinced me that babka-meets-baklava could clear this hurdle. Syrupy finishes are common in desserts from across the It's the finishing soak in baklava's crispy baked phyllo and chopped nuts layers, pulling them together.