Kenton @ Lemon & Olives Greek Food Blog

By foodiva

Ingredients

• 6 oz shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped
• 6 oz walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 6 oz hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• large pinch of ground cloves
• 16-oz package phyllo dough
• 18 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 cup honey
• 1 tbsp orange extract
• 5 whole cloves
• 1 lemon, juice of

Details

Servings 24
Preparation time 30mins
Cooking time 105mins
Adapted from themediterraneandish.com

Preparation

Step 1

Instructions
In a small food processor, chop each of the pistachios, walnuts and hazelnuts.
Set aside 3-4 tbsp of chopped pistachios for garnish.
Place nuts together in a bowl with ¼ cup of the sugar, cinnamon and cloves. Stir to mix.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Unroll phyllo. Measure phyllo sheets ever so briefly briefly against a deep 12 X 16 baking pan. If you need to, trim a little of the phyllo dough/sheet to better fit your baking dish.
Unroll the phyllo on top of a damp towel, and cover with a second damp towel. This will help keep the phyllo dough from breaking while you work to assemble the baklava.
Lightly brush the baking dish with a bit of the melted butter. Take one sheet of phyllo and line the baking pan with it, fold in any excess phyllo. Brush the phyllo with butter and gently press in the corners and sides of the baking pan.
Lay another phyllo sheet on top, brush with butter, and press into the pan as you have done with the first sheet. Continue layering and buttering each phyllo sheet until you have used up ⅓ of the phyllo package.
Distribute half of the nut mixture evenly over the top sheet.
Continue with layering the next ⅓ of the phyllo sheets following the same process as before. Now distribute the remaining half of the nut mixture over the top layer.
Layer the remainder of the phyllo following the same process as before.
If needed, trim off excess phyllo. Brush the very top layer of phyllo with butter.
With a knife, cut diagonal lines, ½ inch deep, in the phyllo to maker out 1½ inch diamond pieces. Do not press the knife all the way down.
Bake on a low rack for 1¼ to 1½ hours, or until golden and a skewer inserted in the center for 30 seconds comes out clean.
While the baklava is baking, make the honey syrup. Place sugar and water in a sauce pan and heat stove-top, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Add honey and orange extract; stir to mix. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and let simmer for about 25 minutes. Remove syrup from heat and let cool to lukewarm. Add lemon juice.
When ready, remove baklava from oven and immediately pour the honey syrup to cover the entire baklava top.
Let the baklava cool, and then with a sharp knife, cut carefully through the earlier marked pieces. Serve with a garnish of chopped pistachios.

Instructions