Baklava

Before you start

• an oven, and a tin the sheets will fit without folding
• thaw the filo overnight in the fridge — thawed fast it cracks
• it wants 6h sitting after it is baked, and overnight is better

Ingredients

Serves 8 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 200gfilo dough
• 150gbutter
• 180gwalnuts and pistachio nuts
• 10 tbsphoney
• 40gsugar
• 1lemon
• 1 tspground cinnamon

Method

8 steps

1. simmer · 11m

   Syrup: honey, sugar, 150ml water and a strip of lemon peel simmered until it is only a little thicker than water. Boiled down hard it sets to toffee in the tin.

2. rest · 45m walk away

   Left to go completely cold while the oven does its work.

3. chop · 9m

   Nuts chopped by hand to a coarse rubble with some pieces still recognisable, then mixed with the cinnamon. Blitzed to dust they turn to paste once the syrup reaches them.

4. fold · 25m

   Butter melted. Filo kept under a damp cloth and taken one sheet at a time — uncovered they dry out and shatter within a minute. Eight buttered sheets, then a third of the nuts, four more sheets, nuts, four more, nuts, and eight on top.

5. chop · 7m

   Cut all the way down to the base of the tin BEFORE it bakes, in diamonds or squares. Cut afterwards, the baked layers shatter and the syrup goes everywhere except inside.

6. roast · 50m walk away

   At 160°C, low and slow, until it is an even deep gold right through to the middle and sounds crisp when tapped. Hot and fast browns the top while the centre stays raw and greasy.

7. finish · 4m

   Cold syrup poured slowly over the hot baklava, along the cuts rather than across the top, so it goes down instead of sitting there.

8. rest · 6 hours walk away

   Left uncovered at room temperature for six hours at least. It is not finished until the syrup has travelled all the way through, and lifting a piece out early gives you the worst version of it.