Chocolate Walnut Baklava
Anyone who knows me knows that if you put a piece of bakalva (must be good baklava or my food snob comes out), i will hunt other pieces down, and i will eat those other pieces.
Because of my immense love for this flaky, buttery, cinnamon-y, sweet Middle Eastern dessert, i decided that i needed to create my own Baklava with my own twist (chocolate is my own twist, friends). I want to start this post off my saying that Baklava is one of those desserts that looks incredibly difficult to make because of all of the delicate layers, but in actuality there really isnt anything easier than a sheet tray of baklava, it just takes a bit of patience and a heavy hand when you’re spreading your butter. That’s it! My favorite part of this dessert, though, is how much it produces. You buy one box of phyllo dough and it makes a whole sheet tray full of baklava, and you’ll still have about 5 sheets to spare, to make something else with!
Before i part ways and leave you with this recipe, i want to share a few tips:
Store your phyllo dough in the freezer after you purchase it
Thaw your dough on the counter for about 1-2 hours before you plan on starting to make your baklava. You can keep it in the box to thaw.
Heat your butter and leave it in the hot pot while you brush your dough.
When you begin working with your phyllo dough, unroll it and lay a clean, damp town over the sheets to keep it from drying out.
Work quickly! the longer the sheets sit in the air without any butter or moister, the more brittle and crumbly they become. You want to keep them saturated with moisture to ensure
Do not use all of the sheets when laying out your phyllo dough. The key here is to create a thinner, more dense baklava instead of a tall and really flaky one. If you want to make larger pieces of baklava, layer your walnut mixture and then your chocolate one additional time to ensure you have an even filling to dough ratio.
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Total time: 45 minutes
Yield: 15-20 servings
Ingredients
1. 4 cups whole walnuts
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
4. ¼ cup orange blossom water
5. 1 packages frozen phyllo dough, thawed ( you will use both rolls of phyllo dough that are in the package)
6. 2 1/2 sticks melted butter
7. 1 package of bittersweet baking chocolate, finely chopped
SYRUP:
1. 1 1/2 cup sugar
2. 1 cup water
3. Splash of orange blossom water
4. 1 teaspoon lemon juice
For syrup:
1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and allow to simmer. The syrup will slightly thicken after 10 min. Remove from heat and let cool.
For Baklava:
1. In a food processor, combine walnuts, sugar, orange blossom water and cinnamon. Pulse until the walnuts are very finely chopped and mixture begins to form into a crumbly paste.
2. Lay your first layer of phyllo dough on the baklava tray. Generously brush the layer of dough with butter. Continue this process of laying a layer of dough and brushing butter until you have laid down about 10 of the phyllo dough.
3. Spread the entire walnut mixture across the top of the buttered phyllo dough layers that you just prepared
4. Lay 3 more layers of the phyllo dough (of course, buttering each layer before laying the next) and then sprinkle your chocolate throughout to ensure the whole layer is covered in chocolate.
5. Lay down about 5 more layers of phyllo dough , following the same buttering technique as you did before.
6. Diagonally cut the baklava once you have finished layering. Crisscross the cuts in order to make parallelogram shaped bite sized pieces of baklava.
7. Place the baklava tray in a preheated oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and bake until lightly golden. This should take about 10-15 min. Watch the baklava closely in order to avoid burning.
8. Remove from oven, and drizzle with the prepared syrup immediately to ensure all pieces are well coated in the syrup.
9. Remove from tray when it has cooled completely and serve!
