The Art of Making:::

Baklava!!!

 Yes, my dear readers! You read correctly. Baklava is Turkish. Although everyone associates baklava with Greek and Greece (because the Greeks have taken many many things from Turkey, and stamped an "I am Greek" stamp on it, the history of Baklava making, as far as most people know, dates before the 1600's and even as early as the Byzantine Days. But, It is Turk. The actual Baklava is believed to come from the Central Asian Turks), brought on the silk road to the Byzantine people in Istanbul (although not called Istanbul), but remained in the Ottoman Kitchen and there has been recorded that the name baklava has never changed. The Balkan Turks in the Ottoman days, would make baklava only during very special occasions, and now, there are variations of baklava in Iran, Syria, All over the Middle East, Afghanistan, India, Mongolia, Greece, and even parts of Europe where the Ottoman Empire Ruled. (Yes, Mongolia was ruled by the Great and Illustrious Ottoman Empire, or they had to pay the Ottoman Empire taxes or something... Because they are called Mogolistan in Turkish...)  The History of exact dates and where is comes from before the Ottoman Kitchen is rather hazy, some say it comes from Assyria, but there are many historians that insists it comes from Central Asian Turks (and the Turkic Turks... ) which makes it all things Turkish.

 Why am I writing about this? Because my dear readers, my Turkish mom and grandma made it the other day, and I got to watch and help a little to see how it was made. My Turkish Grandma is 89 ish years old and this tradition has been passed from mother to child for centuries and centuries. It is about 900 years old or more, and so if you can imagine, being it Turk, and as I am marrying a Turk, I wanted to learn this wonderful and delicious tradition from the very person that is knowing how to make it better than anyone I have ever known. She learned from her mother, until her mother passed away when she was 12, and then her Grandmother taught her.  But, she is amazing. She makes the best baklava ever. This is not an exaggeration and I wanted to learn before she passed away, to keep this tradition in mine and Long Rocks family.

This woman is so amazing she did not even use measuring cups, etc... She just KNOWS how to do it...

Now, I have had to do a lot of research on the dough. All the internet recipes I have read says to buy the dough. OK. You can. But you will not get the dough thinner than paper thin, and I know the difference. Homemade is better. Homemade is HOMEMADE!!!  So...

My Turkish grandma uses yogurt in her recipe with butter somehow. and I will have to get that recipe from her, but I did not see how she made the dough... Sadly... I was interested in how she rolled out the dough... I will have to go back and get her recipe... And make hers. BUT  before you make it, please do yourself a favor and get a rolling pin and a wooden dowel! Make the dowel about 1/4 an inch around, and it can be about 24+ inches in length. Long Rocks grandma has one, they are sold all over Turkey for rolling out dough. Theirs is old old old but, just get yourself one for 3-4 dollars and use it only for the kitchen. The rolling pins are fine, however, not wide enough and it is easier to get a dowel. 

Before you start, have your nuts ready. You can use:

Walnuts, Pistachios, Almonds, Hazelnuts. You are not limited to those but, traditional Turkish use Pistachios, Walnuts or Hazelnuts. you will have to chop them up really fine, if you have a blender or Food Processor to help lucky you! But chop them up and lots. I mean a good pound or if you are making more ... two pounds. I mean, we had a pan 8x8 and we filled it with Hazelnuts. Hazelnuts grow like crazy in Turkey so we used Hazelnuts this time... But you get the picture.

Remove all Jewelry on your hands and wrists first! You do not want the dough to rip.

Now, phyllo dough ingredients. (Turkish yufka hamur)

Ingredients: I want to thank Making Life Delicious for this recipe. It is not Long Rock Family's recipe, but it is very very close. I did not do the steps as she did because, We used different things, and I did not want to steal I am trying to tell you how our Turk family does it, not Eastern Europe of Balkan Countries... So, I am telling you how to make real Turk Baklava.

• 2 2/3 cups (270 g/13 oz) unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon (1 1/2 g) table salt
• 1 cup less 2 tablespoons water (210 ml), plus more if needed
• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil (60 ml), plus additional for coating the dough
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) cider vinegar

In the bowl of your stand mixer combine flour and salt. Mix with paddle attachment. Combine water, oil and vinegar in a pyrex measuring cup. Add water & oil mixture with mixer on low speed, mix until you get a soft dough, if it appears dry add a little more water 

 You want it sticky, but not too soft, When it sticks together in one piece, 

Knead with the dough hook, because we do not have a Kitchen Aide we do it all by hand, baby.  Dough will be soft and smooth. 

Now, make 22 balls the size of fifty cent pieces. Or, if you do not remember those, a little bigger than quarters. If you do not have enough for 22, 20 are fine. You want 10 layers for the bottom and 10 layers for the top. (At Least!)

The balls need to be placed on a plastic tray then covered. lightly cover with oil to keep soft, and cover with plastic strip. Because Long Rocks mom and G-ma are fast, because they have been doing this all their lives, they just use a clean kitchen cloth. I am not so experienced. Let dough sit for about 30 minutes. Do not make the syrup yet!!!

The following is how you should roll the Baklava dough. 

With corn starch and flour take one ball and the rolling pin (normal rolling pin) And roll out the ball flat, until you have about a thin 8 inch circle or try to get it as circle-y as you can... Or If you are using a rectangle pan try to get it into a rectangle shape as possible. add flour to the ball and your pin as needed. Make sure you rotate the dough and add a little flour as dust.

Then, with your dowel (see above) Roll out your now thin dough to even more thin and use lots of flour for this. How you do it is while rolling it, you will roll up the dough with the dowel, so that the dowel is rolled inside the dough. , turn the dowel and unroll the dough, and re-roll it with lots more flour. this is how you get it really really thin and this is how you get it the right shape and thin-ness all around. Do this several times. The last time you do it, when your dough is thinner than paper, unroll your dough onto your pan and adjust as necessary.  At times, the dough will get so thin that when you try to re-roll it , it will try to come up around the edges. That is ok. Gently push it down and roll onto your dwoel from the area closet to you to farthest away from you. When you roll it onto the pan and it drops in the pan roll it farther away from you to closest to you. This way, it will fall off the dowel and into the pan. Sometimes it will fold. Just use your hands to unfold it. 

If it breaks a little, this means your dough is getting dry. You do not want dry dough, it will fall apart and is not good. If it is soft, but falls apart, try to use those layers for the middle so no one can see it. Hehehe. 

Repeat until you have 10 layers of baklava. 

People use butter in the layers, this is not "real Turkish Baklava." that is  probably Greek or Persian variation. 

This one, you do not even butter your pan you do not need to, unless you are working with a pan you know needs to butter, but typically you do not butter your pan. 

OK Next step.

 Pat down your dough just a bit and then add your nuts. cover the dough with them, and get a good layer of nuts on the dough so that every inch is completely covered. If you have left over nuts, not to worry! 

Now, you will repeat the rolling process with the next 10 layers of dough... Rolling to really thin and covering the nuts layers with at least 10 layers of the dough. 

Pat down your dough. Congratulations. You have just completed the first half of making Turkish Baklava. 

NOW... 

(unlike other recipes, you do it this way for Turkish Baklava)

Cutting the baklava. Take your sharpest knife you have and cut into slices. You can make diamonds, squares or triangles. WE do squares in our home. Do your best to make the squares or shapes as evenly as possible. Cutting them is just as important as everything else. you need to cut through all the layers and you can not cut it after it is cooked. You must do it before. 

Now, before you stick it in the oven, set your sliced baklava square in your pan aside and melt butter. Real Butter. About 3/4 a stick or even a whole stick... 180 grams. I do not know the metric system, but my turkish mom used about 250 grams, but she was making double the recipe. Completely melt it and pour it over your baklava. Completely cover your baklava in the butter. try your best to pour it evenly. Then, in a heated over at 100 C (wihich is about 210-215 F) cook your baklava until golden brown. if it is thinner around the edges, to not fear, your baklava will be darker around the edges, but make sure that your baklava is a golden brown color. While in the oven... BTW it is better to cook it slower and lower temp, my Turk Grandma said... While it is cooking, now it is time to make the Syrup. 

My Turk family uses 1/2 cup of water, 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar, and boil until it is REALLY a syrupy syrup. If you want to dress this up a bit, you can add rum flavoring, almond flavoring, honey (if you add honey, reduse the other water and sugar... If you want), rose water (With is ore of a Persian Variant and even they do that in Syria and Lebanon) you can add to your syrup a number of different ways to make it a slightly different flavor. I am Long Rock and like how my Turk Grandma does it... plain. But, I might be in the mood to add a little something to make it my own recipe. I love Rose Water... But I am not sure Long Rock would like it. Anyway... 

 When you add the syrup, many people say a different timing to put the syrup. Turks do it like this. The Baklava is out of the oven, completely cooked, and cooled. The syrup is warm, not boiling hot and not cold, do not add it the least bit cold. That is how you should add it. and cover the baklava with it.

They put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes. Literally two or three minutes. 

We like eating baklava warm and fresh but many instructions say to eat it room temp.  You can sprinkle teh remaining nuts on top of the baklava for a garnish, if you want.

 To keep it, we just keep it on the table under a clean cloth or in the oven covered with another pan, because it dos not last very long in the house anyway. 

There are various ways to store it. The best way is just eating it and sharing it with your friends and family!!!

Happy Eating!

This is Turkish Baklava with Pistachios, and Sprinkled with Pistachios. Yummy

If you want, please add your variant to the wonderful dessert in your comments below! I would love to hear your feed back! Tell me what you did differently or ask me about anything Turkish, or Baklava. I will be more than happy to comment and reply to your comments!