Daring Bakers' Challenge: Baklava with Homemade Phyllo Dough!

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING 

by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

I was honestly really nervous about making these..making my own phyllo dough?! sounded too intense for an amateur baker like me. but last weekend, while i had some friends over, i ventured off to the store to get myself some ingredients for the baklava.

Overall, the whole experience was really fun. i had a great arm workout out of it as well, kneading and rolling out the phyllo dough until it was really thin. after seeing the end result i felt extremely accomplished :] i might actually make this again sometime soon! 

Baklava consists of three parts: thin transparent phyllo, nutty filling, and sweet sticky syrup! 

Ingredients

phyllo dough:

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour 

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon water 

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar 

*all wet ingredients in small liquid measuring cup

**may need more water or flour depending on the consistency of your dough

***recipe can yield about 14 layers 

mix flour, liquid ingredients and salt in a bowl and mix together until it forms a dough

once it forms a dough, place on a floured surface and start kneading (i was kneading this for 40 minutes because i'm weak..)

to knead, push the dough upward with the heel of your hand, then fold the top of the dough towards you

you can also punch down the dough to take out any air bubbles that might have been incorporated when mixing the ingredients. after punching, fold the dough in half towards you

to know if your dough has formed enough gluten, press your finger into the dough, and if the indentation springs back up, then it's ready! 

brush vegetable oil on the dough 

wrap it up in plastic and refrigerate for two hours! :D 

Meanwhile...make the filling! 

Ingredients 

1 cinnamon stick, broken into 2 or 3 pieces

3/4 cup blanched almonds

3/4 cup pistachios

3/4 cup walnuts 

2/3 cup sugar 

*sorry i didn't take pictures of the ingredients! my friends and i were too excited to start crushing them in ziploc bags (i don't have a food processor)

put all ingredients together and crush them! or use a fancy food processor and set on high until finely chopped (make sure the spices are finely chopped because, since mine weren't as fine as they should have been, it kind of hurt the jaw a little chewing on the baklava...)

After 2 hours, take out the dough and pinch off a little piece, the size of a golf ball.

then wrap the rest of the dough and set aside, to ensure that it doesn't lose moisture (pretty important!)

best part ever! flour your surface and rolling pin and flatten the ball. then roll to make the circle bigger. 

then roll the dough around your rolling pin and roll the pin on the surface. when you peel the dough off the rolling pin, it will be really stretched out! repeat until you get the desired size or until it can't stretch out anymore.

make sure the rolling pin is well-floured before the dough is rolled onto it because it will stick.
keep making layers until all the dough is used up.

my layers can fit into an 8x8 inch pan...

layer the layers when done rolling and separate with wax paper to make sure the layers don't stick together

took forever...

it wasn't as thin as i wanted it to be..but at least it was slightly transparent! good enough for me.

then take each layer and trim with a pizza cutter or a sharp tool so they can fit in the pan

i cut out hearts with the extra dough :]

melt 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of butter 

butter the bottom of your pan, then place a layer on top. then butter that layer and add a second layer on top of that..then butter that layer! 

with 14 layers, the layering pattern should be: 

4 layers - filling - 3 layers - filling - 3 layers - filling - 4 layers

*don't forget to butter the top of each phyllo layer! this makes it flaky and crispy! 

by the way, i totally messed up the layering because i thought i counted 11 layers but actually had 14...so i did 3 layers - filling - 2 layers - filling - (then i figured out that i had way more than i thought) 4 layers - filling - 5 layers....i can't count :[

adding 1/3 of the filling!

adding my layers!

with those hearts, i placed them on top of my last layer and buttered it!

tuck the edges to make it look neater ( i really didn't have any edges to tuck though..)

cut into whatever shapes you think is purty and stick into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes...

don't worry if you can't cut down all the way..

after 30 minutes in the oven, take it out and make sure you cut down through all the layers...

and stick it back into the oven for another 30 minutes! or until the top is nice and golden brown

While waiting for that to finish baking, make the syrup!

Ingredients 

1 cup water

1 cup honey

 1 cup sugar 

1 cinnamon stick

1 piece of fresh citrus peel (orange or lemon)

pinch of ground cloves

place all ingredients in saucepan on medium high heat and stir occasionally

once it starts to boil, keep it at a boil for ten minutes

then drain and let it cool 

golden brown! time to take the baklava out of the oven!! 

make sure the syrup is cooled before pouring onto hot baklava.

it'll look like too much syrup but that's okay! 

let it cool to room temperature. once it's to room temp, cover and leave it out at room temperature overnight so the baklava can soak up all the syrup. 

beautiful.

yeah..it looks like i have only two layers of filling, but it's only because there are only 2 layers of phyllo dough in between the first two layers of filling -.- i can't count! 

but it looks amazing nonetheless.