Baklava's Best Friend

I love baklava and I've been dying to make it since I tried it about a year ago. About a week ago I ordered some rose water and I know most recipes don't call for rose water but I decided to hold out until it arrived. In the meantime, I have about 4 boxes of phyllo dough in my freezer and I'm always itching to experiment.

Normally baklava is not refrigerated but in this case it will need to be because of the whipped cream on top. What I've read about baklava is that it won't get too soggy because of the lack of water and that if you hope to put it in the fridge there had better not be any water or it will get soggy. In this recipe I wanted to make something with berries really bad but I was afraid of the water content. This is why I simmered them for so long - to remove the water so that the finished product won't be ruined during refrigeration.

I made this recipe at ~ 8500' in elevation. It may take you less time to reduce your berries and make the sweet syrup.

One last note - this was completely experimental. I was making the instructable as I made the dish. On the late step I've got notes on how it tasted, the texture, and how I think you might want to improve the recipe. The recipe by itself is still pretty darn good though.  Also, please don't judge this based on the pictures. The lighting in my rental house is awful :(

I hope you enjoy the recipe!

**EDIT** I made this again and I would now try using a pan that is slightly longer and wider than the phyllo dough sheets. That way the syrup falls down the sides and gets into the phyllo layers. I'd say this makes the recipe perfect :)

Step 1 Ingredients

The ingredients listed below are exactly how I made the recipe. There is a note or two on how you could change it to make your life easier. Also, there is vanilla extract in the photo but I ended up not using it.

Phyllo Dough Base

1/2 lb of Phyllo dough
1/2 c. of butter, melted
2 c. walnuts, chopped finely (or coarsely if you prefer)
4 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Berry Spread

1-10oz bag of frozen berries (you could probably do fresh if you wanted. This was just what I had)
2 small packages of fresh blackberries
1/4 c. sugar
1 tbsp. of lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Sweet Syrup

1 c. water*
1 c. sugar
1 stick of cinnamon

* You might try and halve the amount of water. It took FOREVER (40 minutes) to simmer this down to syrup.

Whipped Cream**

3 c. whipping cream
3/4 c. sugar

** This is an awesome way to make sweet whipped cream for almost any recipe. You could definitely make this to put on pies or other desserts. Also, you could probably do just fine with only 2 cups of whipping cream (if you reduce the amount reduce the sugar to 1/2 c.)

*** Please not that I did not end up using the vanilla extract that you see in the picture.

Comments

[jessyratfink]

The commentary on step 6 is excellent. The dessert also looks amazing. :)

[Caulerpa]

Even though the bottom falls apart it TASTES amazing! I just tried it after 1 night in the fridge. It's not soggy at all and still tastes as though I made it an hour ago. Let me know if you try it :)