Baklava: A Beginner's Guide
Enjoy the wonders of baklava at home with these simple instructions to make vegan variations that are light, flaky, and delicious…no experience is necessary.
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This sugary, messy Mediterranean pastry sweetens the mouth and brings joy to life. Baklava restores a fading identity, reconstitutes a sense of belonging, and remedies feelings of loss and displacement to those living in a multi-ethnic community.
Several months ago, I witnessed something validating this beautiful sentiment as I sat in a half-empty bakery specializing in Middle Eastern food. It was inching toward late afternoon. The relaxed staff moved around unhurriedly while cleaning and clearing tables. I watched four young people get up from their table. They seemed satisfied...they seemed confident...they seemed at home. I watched them at the cash register as they took notice of the 7 or 8 half-empty trays of interesting baklava variations. They looked inviting. Some were decorated with nuts, and others were intricately woven together with phyllo dough or kataifi – a kind of shredded phyllo pastry. I wondered if they could resist. They couldn’t. Each chose a different variation...and I thought these were not takeaway orders. They giggled slightly with a touch of guilty contentment. Two of them closed their eyes as they bit into their chosen baklava treat. I could see tiny flakes of pastry fall away. And then they left and returned to their lives while blending into the mix of people filling Sydney Road in Melbourne, Australia.
I thought this entire scene could easily have taken place in a bakery somewhere on a Greek island...or in Cyprus...or Turkey...or Syria...or Egypt...or Israel. This ubiquitous pastry is found everywhere now – especially throughout the Mediterranean, but also in any bakery wishing to bring some Mediterranean light into their world. It remains one of the most famous pastries from the 15th-century Ottoman world.
As we got up from our table and approached the cash register, my eyes remained fixed on those baklava trays. I wondered, were these pastries light and scented with orange blossoms, or were they heavy and cloyingly sweet? I wanted to indulge my senses. I wanted to taste these beautiful pastry pieces filled with culture and history. But I was told that these pastries, like most variations everywhere, were made with butter and honey.
As I walked away, I thought, what a shame…why aren’t more bakeries making these delightful treats with oil instead of butter and sugar syrup instead of honey? It seems obvious that using butter – even clarified – contributes to the overall sweetness of baklava. Butter pushes baklava to the brink of imbalance because the taste is too assertive. And the honey, even if mixed with sugar syrup, feels heavy and sticky in the mouth…and again, the taste of honey is strong and mutes other subtle but essential contributors to the baklava experience.
So why hasn’t this recipe changed much in several hundred years? Why aren’t the apparent improvements incorporated...oil instead of butter and a clean and light syrup over a much heavier honey mixture?
Baklava was a delightful and celebratory treat for each of the different cultures within the Ottoman world. It was popular among Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Food writer and historian Claudia Roden wrote:
“Baclawa was associated with celebration in all the Jewish communities throughout the Middle East. Muslims prepared it during Ramadan, and Jews made it for most of their festivals. Family members always offered to make it for special occasions like weddings and bar mitzvahs as a gesture of affection.”
As people emigrated to various lands worldwide, they held onto food and cultural traditions…especially the ones involving festivals and celebrations. These memories are often crucial for immigrants to carry into their adopted lands; they help alleviate feelings of homesickness…of feeling foreign. And strong associations like these mean people become contemptuous of other ways, and recipes remain the same for hundreds of years despite changing ingredients.
I began to wonder about the first baklava creations. I realized they would have tasted much different than what is produced today despite the basic concept remaining the same.
Well-made baklava relies on crispy, thin pastry leaves that enclose a moist, nutty filling delicately seasoned with spices. It should have a syrupy, thin bottom crust. The taste of nuts, fat, and sugar should be balanced – it should be sweet but not cloying.
Early versions of baklava would have relied on a light coating of fat applied to layers of thin fresh pastry made from wheat and water. Olive oil would have been available during the 15th Century, but it was expensive and reserved for the kitchens in the high court. The everyday fat in the Ottoman world was clarified butter made from sheep’s milk. The fat was spiced and fermented in containers that were stored for months…or even years. It was an essential technique to preserve fat in warm climates without the luxury of refrigeration. The fat would develop strong flavors during the process, which, I imagine, would have impacted the taste of the pastries. To satisfy the sweet tooth of the Ottomans, honey and pekmez, a molasses-like sweetener made from grapes, would have been used – often combined – to provide the sweet element to the base of baklava pastries. The filling was mostly made from ground pistachio nuts – sometimes walnuts – and seasoned with cinnamon and cloves.
Most baklava produced today rely on the traditional ingredients. The fat to moisten the phyllo layers is either clarified butter or margarine (mass-produced variations rely on palm oil). The sweetener can be a flavored sugar syrup combined with honey or even glucose to produce a very sweet and often dense coating to the bottom layer. In recognition of the grand version of baklava, most of today’s Baklava is merely topped with chopped pistachio nuts and filled with other nuts – primarily almonds and walnuts. The techniques and instructions shared in cookbooks, the internet, and YouTube videos rarely offer alternatives, leaving baklava unchanged for centuries…and mostly far too heavy and cloyingly sweet.
I began fooling around with making baklava about 20 years ago. Like most, I relied on the knowledge given me by cookbooks…and I was never pleased with the outcome, which unsurprisingly turned out heavy and far too sweet.
One of my early breakthroughs in making an acceptable baklava came when I replaced the clarified butter with olive oil. I became convinced the butter only contributed sweetness; otherwise, what was the point of turning butter into a liquid fat when oil was already liquid?
Ultimately, I continued my experiments, looking for ways to create the flakiest variation that tasted light – still sweet but noticeably lighter. And I changed virtually every step until I was satisfied that my ideas for making baklava produced an exceptional final product. Here are the key points I discovered on my baklava journey: