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BAKLAVA
Fillo dough
1 1/4 cups butter/margarine
1/4 cup sugar
1-2 tsp cinnamon
4 cups almonds, slivered and chopped
whole cloves
4 cups sugar
3 cups water
1/2 cup honey
1 stick cinamon
5-6 whole cloves
Mix sugar, cinamon, sugar, and almonds.
Lay the fillo dough out on a table. Fillo dough will dry quickly,
so you'll need to work fast, so what spills out of the pan doesn't
dry (although it will anyway), and keep a damp towel on the rest
of it (that you had laid on the table) so it doesn't dry.
On a medium-sized, buttered pan (you'll need to melt the butter)
lay one of the sheets of dough. Butter it, and lay another on top
of that. Continue until you have 5-6 sheets of dough on the bottom
of the pan. Then lay another sheet, and do NOT butter it. On
that, put some of the almond mix, enough to cover it evenly, but
not making a thick layer. On that, lay another sheet of dough,
butter it, and then another, unbuttered. On that place some almond
mix again. Repeat until all the mix is gone, or you have only 4-5
sheets of dough left.
Fold in the dough that hangs from the side of the pan. Some of
sthem will be dry, so just cut them and discard them. Make sure
to butter all of them (except, of course, if they have almonds on
them).Lay down some more sheets of dough, buttering every one, and
cutting off the edges, that hang from the sides of the pan. here,
I've found it easier if you just lay the dough down, width of dough
to length of pan. That is to say, the width of the dough is
sometimes about teh same size as the length of the pan, and the
length of the dough about twice the widht of the pan, so lay the
short side of the dough down along the length of the pan, so that
some (about half) of it will hang out the end. Then butter it,
and fold what hangs back in the pan, buttering that. This way you
get it to look better, and stick better.
When you're done with laying the sheets of dough down, make sure
you butter the first one VERY well, and sprinkle some water on it
before you put it in the oven. Also, with a sharp, pointy knife,
cut the top few sheets of dough, not getting all the way through,
just sort of "scratching" the top layer and marking the pieces, in
rhombus-shaped pieces. I find it easier to cut along lengthwise,
and then sideways, from corner to corner, and lines paralel to
that:
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|Then, at the center of each rhombus, stick a clove, so that it keeps the
sheets of dough together. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, until
golden-brown, and the edges no longer touch the wall of the pan.
Place sugar and water in a pan and bring tooa boil Boil for 5 minutes,
then add honey and spices and simmer until all is combined well,
10 minutes maybe, enough for the spices to give off flavor.
Retain the syrup hot until the baklava comes out of the oven and cools.
Pour the hot syrup over the cold baklava. (some do it the other way, I
don't think it matters, as long as one is hot and the other cold, so
that it "boils" into the baklava and it saturates it well, whicle at the
same time keeps the top layer of filo dough crispy).
Note: Put in along with the spices a piece of lemon peel or
1-2 tbsp rosewater.
Use walnuts or baking pistachios instead of almonds, or any
walnut/almond or pistachio/almond combo, ground coarsly.
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Baklava 06