After much deliberation I decided not to make the filo pastry myself. Usually buying things that I can make myself is kind of against my principles, but in this case I decided to just buy it, as making it from scratch just sounded like a right royal pain. Here's a shot of my ingredients:
I started by unwrapping the filo pastry. Once it's open this stuff dries out really fast so it's important to work fast, or keep it covered with a damp cloth. I took half the filo pastry sheets, placing them in a baking tray one at a time, and painting the top of each one with melted butter. Like so:
Ouch! My colesterol levels are shooting up just looking at this! I then added a layer of the chopped nuts mixed with a couple of spoons of sugar, and spices to taste. Then I added the remaining filo pastry sheets, painted with copius amounts of butter. That done, I took a sharp knife and cut it up ino bite size pieces. Next the whole lot went into the oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. I then turned the oven down to 150 degrees and baked for a further 40 minutes. While it was cooking I made the sugar syrup to pour over the top. I used 350g sugar, water and a little lemon juice, over a low heat. When the baclava came out of the oven I poured the syrup over the top and left it overnight to soak in. Yum yum!
I will definitely be making this again! But I will be doing things a bit differently. I really used too many sheets of pastry. The top couple didn't really to the rest particularly well. Next time I will only use about 10 sheets per level. I also want to try making the syrup with honey instead of sugar. Much more tasty!
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