Birthdays And Baklava

We all have them, they come round once a year and we celebrate them often with gifts and a party. It's called a birthday - the day you become another year older and of course wiser!

On the 23rd June it was my Fathers birthday. 21 again of course! I pondered for some time, wondering what to get him. I mean what do you get a man who already has everything he could want? Baklava of course!

No, I know what you're thinking, it's not the knitted headgear that you pull onto your face only exposing your eyes and mouth, often seen on comedy 'robbers' - although I think he would look quite fetching in one. Baklava is a rich and very sweet middle eastern sweet made from layers of filo pastry, nuts and syrup.

It's not for the faint hearted, it really is for someone with a sweet tooth and over the years my Father has acquired many of those. So I decided to make some for his birthday.

I can't take credit for the recipe, it's actually Nigella Lawsons but here is my take on it....

Ingredients

325g pistachios

125g unsalted butter

400g filo pastry 

For the syrup

300ml of water

500g caster sugar

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tablespoon of rosewater

1 tablespoon of orange-flower water

1. First of all I decided to prepare the nuts. I actually used a mixture of pistachios and walnuts - mainly because pistachios are quite expensive. You need to crush them until they are medium to fine. It's best to use a processor for this, I unfortunately don't own one so instead I bashed them in a bag using a wooden meat clever! Haha! Anyway, it seemed to do the trick....

2. Next up I got to work on the syrup. This is what makes it really sweet and you can see why by the ingredients. To make it you first need to bring the caster sugar, water and lemon juice to the boil. Keep it boiling for 5 minutes then all the rosewater and orange-flower water. Once you have done this, remove it from the heat and put it into the fridge to cool. 

Squeezing the lemon juice for the syrup!

3. You now need to melt your butter over the hob on a low heat ready for brushing your baking tin and layers of filo pastry - yes this is a very 'fatty' sweet. I used a rectangular tin, Nigella says to use a square one. Either is fine. 

4. So first of all brush your tin all over with the melted butter, then add your first layer of filo pastry and brush that with butter as well. Keep doing this until you have used half of the filo sheets. Don't worry if the filo hangs over the sides, we will sort this out later. 

5. Now it's time to go nuts! Spread all of your crushed pistachios and walnuts evenly over the filo sheets, like so...

6. After this carry on adding the rest of the filo sheets remembering to brush each layer with butter, especially the top layer at the end. Next use a sharp knife to cut the edges hanging over the sides of the tin and then cut the whole thing into diamond shapes. This is easiest to do by cutting parallel lines diagonally (see photo below) and make sure you cut all the way to the bottom.

7. It is now ready to put into a pre-heated oven at 180C / gas mark 4 / 350F for 30 minutes. 

8. It should come out looking golden brown and puffed. As soon as you've taken it out, grab the syrup you put in the fridge earlier and pour half of it all over so it seeps down all the gaps. Leave it to cool for a few minutes, then add the other half of the syrup. 

9. And that's it - job done! Once it has completely cooled down, take the pieces out of the tin and enjoy. To finish it off I also sprinkled a few crushed nuts on top to give it that extra but of crunch!

So on my Father's birthday we all went out to eat in London.... 

....then afterwards we came back to my house, had birthday cake and baklava. 

He totally yummed it up!

•