Recipe: Perfect Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava

Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava. Specializing in authentic baklava. and other Greek sweets. Greek Baklava at Maria's is Truly a DESSERT OF THE GODS! It's just not the traditional one but my version as i wanted it to be less sweet.

It's basically a party in your mouth. I am a huge fan of baklava and this. So Baklava may not be exactly low calorie health food but it sure is delicious and easy to make - yes, easy! You can have Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava using 15 ingredients and 14 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava

1. You need of Dough.
2. Prepare of Phyllo Dough.
3. Prepare of Very Sharp Knife without serrated edges.
4. Prepare of Filling.
5. It's of Walnuts.
6. Prepare of Sugar.
7. It's of Cinnamon.
8. It's of Spreading between layers.
9. Prepare of Unsalted Sweet Melted Butter.
10. You need of Cooking Brush.
11. You need of Sugar Water Topping.
12. Prepare of Water.
13. It's of Sugar.
14. Prepare of Whole Cloves.
15. You need of Pure Vanilla.

All you do is: put a few. Baklava is a layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with syrup or honey. It was one of the most popular sweet pastries of Ottoman cuisine. Turkey, Greece and Lebanon may claim baklava as their own, but who created this layered treat?

Maria's Not so Sweet Baklava instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Chop up walnuts really fine add the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and mix together well and set aside..
3. Use a 1 inch to 1.5 inch thick, flat wide baking pan at least 18"x14" if you don't have one that size you can cut sheets to fit your pan. cutting the sheets all together helps cut down prep time..
4. Grease the bottom of the pan with cooking brush a light thin coating of melted butter..
5. For a thin crust use four sheets on bottom of pan. For a thick crust on bottom use 8 sheets. after placing the sheets on the bottom of the pan with a cooking brush, coat the last sheet on top with the melted butter.
6. Sprinkle a thin layer of the walnut mix to the buttered sheets..
7. Add 4 sheets again and butter the last top sheet again and add again a thin layer of walnut mix. do these steps with both boxes until all sheets are used. but do not butter the very last sheet on top..
8. Cutting the Baklava is easier when top is not greased..
9. After cutting the Baklava use the brush to gently grease the top with the melted butter..
10. Bake Baklava in middle of oven for 20 to 30 min depending on your oven. or until golden brown on top..
11. While the Baklava is baking, you can make your Sugar water on the stove top..
12. Add the water, sugar, cloves, and vanilla and let it boil until slightly thick. for about 20 min on medium heat stirring occasionally if not slightly thick add 5 more min to heating. if needed a larger amount of Sugar water just use double the ingredients..
13. When Baklava is done pour sugar water with spoon into cracks of the cut lines to evenly coat baklava while its still hot. both baklava and sugar water need to be hot for this process. but not boiling hot, 1.5 cups worth of cooked sugar water should be good for a whole pan. but if you like it slightly moist use 2 cups of cooked sugar water..
14. Enjoy.

It was the honey syrup that convinced me that babka-meets-baklava could clear this hurdle. Syrupy finishes are common in desserts from across the Middle East and Levant. It's the finishing soak in baklava's crispy baked phyllo and chopped nuts layers, pulling them together. Greek baklava tends to just be walnuts, while some other varieties (Turkish, Lebanese, etc.) use pistachios, almonds, etc. Baklava is easy enough to make.