Name: Baklava Recipe From Scratch
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 25
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 4 cups flour; 1 egg; ½ cup lukewarm milk; ½ cup juicy yogurt; 1 tbsp baking powder; ½ cup corn oil; 500g corn starch; 1 and ½ cup walnut, crumbled; 150g butter; 5 cups sugar; 3 and ½ cup water; 1 tbsp lemon juice

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Baklava recipe from scratch requires making baklava dough and rolling it out into phyllo sheets at home. It is not as hard as you think, just takes some time. Filled with walnuts and layered with incredibly thin homemade baklava sheets. Everyone will beg for more!

Baklava is one of the best Turkish desserts known around the world. If you don't have the patience or time to make it from scratch, don't worry. You can still make a tasty and super easy baklava with store-bought phyllo sheets!

Handmade baklava is a well known Middle Eastern dessert around the world and it has varieties. It is either filled with crumbled pistachio or crumbled walnuts. Mostly grannies are known as the masters of rolling out baklava dough in thin sheets.

It’s a tradition in Turkey to make it at home from scratch to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr. I don’t know why but baklava with homemade phyllo sheets is always much tastier than the most pricy one in the industry.

Serving your guests the baklava you make from scratch is definitely precious during Eid. I think this tradition will die unless young women learn how to make baklava from scratch. I accept it is not very easy to make it at home, but you are encouraged enough if you have your mother or grandmother with you. Or if you have enough craving for a good baklava.

How to make baklava sheets

Baklava sheets must be very thin, as thin as parchment paper which makes it a challenging dessert to make from scratch. Several phyllo dough sheets are put together and rolled out together. Instead of flour, corn starch aka cornflour is used in between each to prevent them from sticking to one another.

First make the baklava dough. Mix all ingredients for dough and combine well. It will not be a too soft dough. Cover and let it sit for 20 minutes.

Second, divide it into three and make 16 small balls from each group, so you will have 3 groups of balls, each with 16 balls. Sprinkle corn starch over them.

Third, roll them out. Take one of the balls and roll it out a little sprinkling corn starch over it. After rolling it as big as a serving plate, sprinkle extra corn starch over it and put it aside. Roll out all the dough balls in the same way. Finally, put them on one another, sprinkling starch between each layer. They should overlap. Repeat the same for the other two groups of balls.

Finally, roll them out in groups to make larger leaves. Take the first rolled group and roll all of them out together as big and thin as you can. Sprinkle starch when needed.

Homemade baklava with homemade baklava leaves

What else to serve during Eid

I find it interesting, but stuffed grape leaves aka dolmas are served on the same plate with homemade baklava or its cousin, kadaif during Eid in central Anatolia. These are accompanied by Turkish tea or a cup of traditional Turkish coffee for sure. By serving these two laborious foods, you want to show your guests how valuable they are for you. You must watch how much you eat during Eid otherwise you might easily gain weight after eating it at every home you visit.

Not to mention the Turkish delights served just when welcoming the guests at the door.

Special method of eating baklava

Did you know there is a special way to eat baklava recommended by masters of it? Grab it with two fingers, turn it upside down and eat it that way. Masters from Gaziantep say that you must first feel the sweetness of this dessert on your palate. The bottom layer is the sweetest part of it, the top layer is left crispy. That’s why you turn it upside down when eating.

This crispy and irresistibly tasty baklava is made by a very sweet neighbor of us. When we visited her this Eid, she gave us a small box of her baklava as a gift! What a neighbor! She even gave the recipe and I wrote it down for you.

More Turkish Desserts

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Baklava Recipe From Scratch

Print Recipe

★★★★★

5 from 1 reviews

Baklava dough, baklava sheets and the final dessert with walnut filling are all homemade.

Author: Zerrin & Yusuf
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Yield: 25 1x
Category: Dessert
Method: Baking
Cuisine: Turkish

Ingredients

Scale

Dough:

4 cups flour
1 egg
½ cup lukewarm milk
½ cup juicy yogurt
1 tbsp baking powder
½ cup corn oil

For rolling out:

500g corn starch

Filling:

1 and ½ cup walnut, crumbled

topping:

150g butter

Syrup:

5 cups sugar
3 and ½ cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

Mix all ingredients for dough and combine well. It will not be a too soft dough. Wait it for 20 min.
Divide it into three and make 16 small balls from each, so you will have 3 groups of balls, each with 16 balls.
Sprinkle corn starch over them.
Take one of the balls and roll it out a little using corn starch. Sprinkle corn starch over it and put it aside.
Roll out 15 balls in the same way and put them on the first one sprinkling starch between layers and they overlap.
Repeat the same for the other two groups.
Preheat oven to 190C.
Brush a round oven tray with a little oil.
Now take the first rolled group and roll all of them together as big as thin as you can. Use starch when needed.
Place these layers into the tray and add half of the walnuts on it.
Roll out the second group of 16 layers in the same way and place them right over the walnuts.
Sprinkle the rest of walnuts on it.
Roll out the third group and place it over the second walnut layer.
Cut it into slices with a thin and sharp knife.
Melt butter and pour it hot over it.
Bake it at 190C until golden, about 50 min.
Let it cool.
Mix sugar and water in a pot and bring it to boil.
Let it boil for 15 min.
Add in 1 tablespoon lemon juice, boil for 2 more minutes. Let it cool.
Pour the cold syrup over hot baklava and let it absorb the syrup well.
Serve at least after 4 hours.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 slice
Calories: 397
Sugar: 40.5 g
Sodium: 10.5 mg
Fat: 18.6 g
Carbohydrates: 56.6 g
Protein: 2.7 g
Cholesterol: 21.1 mg

Keywords: baklava from scratch, baklava recipe from scratch