Salted Caramel Baklava
An original recipe by Not Quite Nigella
Makes 36 squares of baklava
Ingredients
Pastry:
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375 grams/13.25ozs packed of filo pastry sheets (refrigerated kind is easiest to work with)
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350g/12.36g/3 sticks salted butter
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1 cup walnuts
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1/2 cup pistachios plus an extra 3 tablespoons to sprinkle over at the end
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2 tablespoons brown sugar
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1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
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1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
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1/2 teaspoon salt plus Fleur de sel salt to sprinkle over at the end
Syrup:
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1.5 cups water
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1 1/4 cups sugar
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1/4 cup honey
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1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Step 1 - Make the syrup first. It will need about 1.5 hours to cool at room temperature and is best when cold so I like to make this the night before. Combine all ingredients on low heat until sugar dissolves completely. Then turn up heat to medium high and boil for 10 minutes until syrup thickens a little to a syrup-you don't want it too thick though as you want to pour it over the pastry. Cool at room temperature and then refrigerate for best results.
Step 2 - When ready to assemble, remove the pastry from the fridge but keep in the box. Brown the butter to give it an extra nutty flavour. Simmer the butter until it becomes white and foamy on top, skim off this white foam and discard the foam. Turn heat up a little to medium and when it starts to brown remove from heat (the aroma is a good way to tell, it will smell nutty). Set aside to cool.
Step 3 - Process the nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and place in a bowl.
Step 4 - Unwrap the filo and using a sharp knife trim the pastry so that it fits your pan if you need to-I didn't as used a large baking dish. The pan was slightly larger than the pastry but that was okay. I lined it with parchment to make it easier to remove from the dish at the end. Place excess pastry if you have any (I didn't), back in the packet and refrigerate.
Step 5 - My filo sheets were double the size of the pan so I cut them in half. Place a large sheet of cling film on top of the filo to cover filo to stop it from drying out. It becomes really hard to handle if it dries out and cracks very easily.
Step 6 - Place one layer of filo on the parchment lined dish and using a pastry brush, brush with the browned butter. Complete 10 layers of buttered filo pastry. At this point you'll think "this is such a labour of love..." and may lose patience with it.
Step 7 - Spoon a thin layer of the nut mixture onto the pastry layers and then keep alternating two layers of buttered Filo with a thin layer of the nut mixture until the nut mixture is used up. Then finish with layering with the rest of the filo pastry and buttering between each layer. Butter top layer too.
If you want to do the flower buds on top, cut a thin piece of the pastry like a ribbon and curl around a finger as shown. Place the completed flower buds under some cling wrap so that they don't dry out. They're time consuming and quite honestly I only did a few like that because I was getting tired of shaping each flower bud.
Step 8 - Using a sharp knife, cut into the baklava and then cut squares as shown. I used a sharp knife to cut through most of the layers but then a blunter knife to get right to the bottom so that I didnt scratch the baking dish. Butter edges with more butter. If you're doing the flower buds, cut a small "x" into the centre of a piece and dip the buds in the butter and gently wedge into the crevice made by the "X".
Step 9 - Bake in the 180C/350F degree oven for 30 minutes then lower the heat to 150C/300F and continue baking for 30 minutes or until the pastry has puffed up slightly and taken on a light golden hue. While it is baking, check on the consistency of the syrup and make sure that it is cold and pourable-if it is too stiff, just add a little cold water until you get the right consistency.
10 . Remove pastry from oven and while it is still very hot, carefully pour the cold or room temperature syrup over, a bit at a time until the syrup is absorbed. The pastry will make a little crunch or crackle noise when you do this. Sprinkle the reserved chopped pistachio and some fleur de sel salt on top of the baklava and cool at room temperature. When cooled, you can lift the piece of parchment at the sides and cut the baklava on a chopping board. I placed each one in a paper patty pan to serve. Store at room temperature for 2-3 days.