The Show Down

Today I begin my final alteration on baklava starting with the making of the dough. Using a recipe from another blog I found (http://makinglifedelicious.com/2011/06/27/make-your-own-phyllo-dough-baklava-traditional-less-so/) it seemed pretty simple... hmmm...sounds fishy already. 

The phyllo dough recipe on the blog reads as. 

• 2 2/3 cups (270 g/13 oz) unbleached all purpose flour: (I used whole wheat instead) 
• 1/4 teaspoon (1 1/2 g) table salt
• 1 cup less 2 tablespoons water (210 ml), plus more if needed
• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil (60 ml), plus additional for coating the dough
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) cider vinegar

I first mixed my ingredients starting with sifting the salt into the flour. 

Then I combined the water, vegetable oil (I used olive oil) and cider vinegar together in a separate container. Me being me did not have a table spoon or tsp measurer so I just winged it, this may or may not end well, (apologies in advance if you find yourself eating oily dough tonight). 

The recipe called for a paddle mixer, well, I don't have one of those but I do have two hands. After flouring the counter a little I got to work kneading the dough. 

Hugh? and ok... was my impression of the instructions when it said "throw the dough hard onto the counter a bunch of times" Whaao, and then the fun really began. I felt like I was making some kind of experimental music, pick up and throw thud, pick up and throw thud... repeat. After getting way to carried away making music I finally had to stop, wrap it in plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 2 hours before I could began the next step. 

Now the rolling. After getting a table brought in from outside and covering it with a sheet of plastic (which I cleaned) I was ready to start. 

The dough was quite sticky but by making sure there was enough flour being distributed it turned out pretty good. Also I was unable to get it super thin. 

Mmm. For this rendition of baklava I put pistachios mixed with almonds and cooked up dates. 

Here is the recipe I worked off of. 

-Syrup Recipe is 

•  1/4 cups (300 ml) honey 

• 1 1/4 cups (300ml) water

• 1 1/4 cups (300 ml) (280 gm/10 oz) sugar

• 1 cinnamon stick (or just ground cinnamon)

• 1 (2-inch/50 mm) piece fresh orange peel (I used a lemon)

• a pinch or ground clove (I also added Nutmeg). 

-Combine all ingredients in a medium pot over medium high heat. Stir occasionally until sugar has dissolved. Boil for 10 minutes, stir occasionally.

The filling recipe I based my rendition on is from this blog site
(http://thegreekfork.com/2012/01/all-time-classic-baklava/)

-Filling

-125gr coarsely chopped almonds  (I did not have very many almonds so I cooked up a cup of dates over the stove with some nutmeg and cinnamon thrown in for good measure.) 

-250gr coarsely chopped walnuts (I used Pistachios instead)

-2 full tsp ground cinnamon (just add lots of it!!) 

-150gr sugar  (again, I don't know if I used this amount of sugar, I tend to cut back on whatever amount of sugar recipes call for.)

-1/8 tsp ground cloves

-¼ tsp ground nutmeg

Preparation

Start the syrup by combining water, sugar and honey, and bring to boil, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat and add cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, lemon and orange slices, and let simmer uncovered for about 8-10 minutes (or more, I think this allows it to really get good.)  Set aside to cool.

I also (on a really good suggestion by Marlee) rolled the baklava instead of stacking it which turned out pretty good other then not looking as tidy as layering it (but it smells good!) 

So last alteration complete. The baklava looks a little like cinnamon buns or something like that,  whooo !!!!!

Tra-raditional Baklava with a Twist

So, with much anticipation I am making my second alteration of baklava today. There are a lot of differences I am preforming starting with the type of dough. The kind I'm using this time is thicker and less breakable then the kind I used last time. The filling is also quite different, being inspired by the sixteen century baklava that was made with a type of lentils, I am using chickpeas. What you say? Well, they are a legume from the Mediterranean Basin, (which includes Turkey). They are also an ancient food, and according to "The Worlds Healthiest Foods," they have been recorded being eaten around 3000 BC and known to have been consumed by the Turks, Greeks and Romans.

 Interesting you say, well, I also put crushed up chocolate in it, WHATT!!! yup, this is also drawing on dessert history as chocolate was introduced to Europe around 1585 and spread out from there. So I thought that adding some in would help create a time traveling experience of richness (pretending that I am some peasant living in Turkey with only having gazebo beans for my baklava but then stealing a bag of chocolate from a merchant)

or something like that.

 So, we had some company over for dinner and because I had not used any nuts in the baklava, one of our guests who was allergic to nuts was able to eat it (yea for chickpeas!). Personally I found that this baklava had an interesting texture (a crunchy grittiness) in comparison to the previous kind I made but everybody said they really enjoyed it.  

 Now I am even more excited to make my final batch (for all you guys to hopefully enjoy). This last version will be filled with things I learned from the previous attempts as well as my own spin on baklava. Whoooooo!! 

Short and Sweet

So after waiting, and waiting and traveling to North van with my Baklava strapped to my back (literally,) I arrived at my Brother and Sister in laws house. I had decided that because eating all this dessert by myself would be rather crazy especially when looking at the amount of butter and sugar in it,  sharing it with family would be best.

Little did I know that they had some other friends over who would also be partaking in the Baklava eating. To be honest I was a little scared about what it would taste like, but after the first bite and passing around plates (Hurray!! I was still breathing which was a good sign) everyone dug in and said that they really enjoyed it. Yes! Mission complete, well at least the first part. I am now quite excited to make my own phyllo dough and experience how the next rendition turns out. YAAA!!

So it Begins

The Sun is shining, there's no clouds in sight, Yes.. It's the Perfect day to make Baklava.
My search for ingredients had began yesterday with a trip to No frills to buy the Phyllo dough, butter and almonds. Through the darkness caused by fog and rain I arrived at it's doors and walked around looking for the dough first. After not finding it after much searching I skipped it for now and went in search of the other ingredients on my list. I came upon butter first, but did not know what kind to get. After spending probably 10 minutes in front of the butter section comparing prices, ingredients and such (i'm one of those people) I finally made a decision. Then I found some almonds but they were very expensive so I thought I could find them cheaper somewhere else. So after dreaming about making Baklava, this morning I walked down to the IGA to see if they had Phyllo dough.
After meandered around the place again looking for the stuff I finally found it!! But wait, there was not just one but two brands to chose from. So after about 15 minutes of comparing them,  (people in the store where probably wondering what the girl in the freezer aisle was doing starring at two boxes for so long), but Yes, I was reading the ingredients, and checking the expiry date and making sure that it was indeed the right stuff but they probably wouldn't understand.
So I finally made a decision, and then went and got some almonds, (which were way over priced) and walked out to start the process of baking.
First I chopped up the walnuts I had gotten a few days ago and then I blended the almonds after almost cutting off my fingers when I thought it would be better to chop them by hand.

I started to cook the syrup which consisted of sugar, honey, lemon, cloves and cinnamon, mmm smelled pretty good.

This bubbled away for about 10 minutes while I mixed the almonds and walnuts together with more sugar and cinnamon.
After this, I got the butter out which I noticed was the wrong kind (I was suppose to get unsalted) but because I had already spent so much time running around finding the ingredients I ended up using it, and hopefully it will not effect the taste to much. So now after melting the wrong butter I grabbed my prized phyllo dough and ripped open the package.

The pan that I was planning on using for the Baklava was more of a square shape then a rectangle so I had to cut the Phyllo dough down the middle to make it fit. But then after I unrolled it I found out that I had cut it the wrong way and now it was really long strands of dough. To fix this I preceded to cut it again, hoping that it would turn out the way it is suppose to. As this was happening, I had to also be aware of the time because the dough dries out super quick (at least according to the recipe I was following). So working like really fast, I slathered and I mean SLATHERED the strips of dough with butter and placed them in the pan, layering them over each other. Then after about 10 layers I added about half the nut filling, covering it again with more layers, more BUTTER, until all the dough and nut mixer was gone. After all that, I cut the dough into triangle pieces (the recipe said that you must remember to do this before baking because it is virtually impossible to do after the Baklava is cooked) and shoved it in the oven.

 HA!! I did it!

SO it is cooked, or hopefully cooked, I forgot to see what time it was when I put it in the oven so I don't know if it cooked all the way through. Anyway the air is filled with the smell of butter and pastry so judging by that it's done. Mmmm..

Now I just have to wait, and wait... and wait... until it soaks up all the syrup i just poured on it. Yes patience is a virtue.

So, next time, if there is another post, I say this because I do not know if I will survive what I just created, but if there is another one it will probably tell you how it turned out, (whether I am sick or extremely hyper due to the amount of sugar it this). And perhaps it will also give you some more info into what I will be doing differently next time.
Chow!!

Where the Baklava Monster frolics.

In thinking about how to researching the history of Baklava, I was preparing myself to have to search to the depths of cyberspace to find anything on its origins. Little did I know that it actually has quite an extensive history. To help me out with my research Michael Krondi, author of Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert gives a good layout of the desserts past.

 Baklava is primarily Turkish in origin yet its roots can be traced back to Biblical times with the Israelites baking of "unleavened bread 'yufka', milk and honey,"(80).  In Krondi's book she mentions that  Pistachios were cultivated in Babylon around the 700 BC, (80).

Around 1450, a Turkish mystic poet wrote about a layered pastry "filled with almonds and lentils" (79).  On its journey of 'becoming' Baklava was written about by a Baghdadi poet by the name of Ibn al-Rumi. He described it as "more delicate than the morning breeze and as thin as the inner skin of the eggshell of locusts' wings." (81). Kind of a weird visual but ok.

In Istanbul around Sixteenth-century the process to make Baklava (because of its high standing) became much more of an art form. Baklava at the time was the dessert of kings or of those who had extreme wealth. The chief chefs of the king would make it 100 layers thick... 100 LAYERS!! and as delicate and "insubstantial that a coin dropped from a two-foot height would supposedly pierce every layer right down to the tray," (83). 

  

WOW, that is a lot of very thin dough. Actually, this just in, I just found out from Mary Isin, the author of Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts that sometimes it was even one thousand layers thick!!  No I am not planning on making mine that dense thankfully but wow, they really got enthusiastic about this stuff. 
 

Now at the Güllüoglu factory in modern day Turkey, the tradition of Baklava continues.  The owner Fatih stated in Krondi's book that "Baklava is an art" and I believe that he is right. It takes patience, and a lot of training to make.  In Fatih words, it is "like a university, [taking] years to learn," (76).
In the interview Fatih goes into quite some detail concerning the process of Baklava making.  Huge rolling pins are used to press the dough down into thin sheets. Under the watchful eye of a skilled employee, corn starch is applied and reapplied by hand to help the dough become super thin. This person also knows when the dough needs more corn starch to help the Baklava turn out more 'pastry' then the brittle strictly commercialized versions (76). According to Krondi, Baklava is suppose to 'have a crispiness that entirely transcends the chewy, and often soggy, Baklava found in the United States" (77). Again, wow, it is crazy how something we eat and enjoy can be actually so inferior to the real thing. Anyway here is some more info on my timeline for this project.

To begin, I am planning on making my first batch this weekend and then from there probably the second batch next week and to top it all. AND I MEAN ALL!!! The final version will be done around the date of our "show and tell" class, or at least that is the hope. YEAAA. and here is a unicorn, just in case you where wondering what a canadian rendition of Baklava will look like.

A Step in the Right Direction

Maker Culture: the new Industrial Revolution consisting of circuit boards and exploding cellphones jumping out of handbags, (or at least that is what my mental picture looks like). Anyway, in the midst of this 'revolution', I have been wondering about the intertwining of things from other cultures. Will kids be just as adapt to make things native to India as they are to make things deemed 'Canadian'?

So, my journey begins here. When considering what I wanted to make in relation to the things we have read over this semester about consumerism. I wanted to do something that I would of (until now) only have bought. This is because I do like to make things, baking or cooking is a kind of down time for me. However, I know that there are tones of things I have never tried to make because I feared they'd be to hard. Or now as I have discovered: I have also been hesitant to make things from other cultures. This is where my idea to make Baklava first came from, no, actually it came from the thought "what is something I think is crazily hard to make, and because of that I only buy it?"
So the thing I am planning to make is, yes, BAKLAVA.. (said with big emphasis, accompanied by a mental picture of some crazy lava monster running down a mountainside, with honey dripping from its mouth shouting BAAA!!)

Baklava Monster

     
Yes. Exactly like that. Now how long do I think this creation will take? To be completely honest, FOREVER. Then after forever is over, this frankenstein of a creation will somehow come to life and step onto yours and my plate (unless I by accidentally make it with salt instead of sugar). Then forever will continue for a little longer. But, to be even more completely honest, I am quite excited, a lot actually. So this foreverness will also be some kind of paradise consisting of rivers of honey and hopefully unburnt baklava, not the baklava monster, but the Real BAKLAVA in all its glory.

When I make Baklava I plan on doing a few different things each time. Baklava can be made (as I am now in the midst of learning) many different ways. These being dependent upon what kind of nuts you use, what you glaze it with in-between layers of dough or even how you cut it.  So, with all this said, let the journey/ challenge begin. I accept.


Hey Everyone, here is an update on my timeline for this project.

When I make my batches I am planning on beginning with making a more commercialized 'Western version' first. This will help me get more familiar with the process and time it takes to make Baklava before doing a more complicated version such as my next one which will be an authentic as can be batch. When I make this one I am planning on making my own dough. To end it all, my last batch will be an authentic to myself kind of Baklava by drawing on what I learned from the Western version and the authentic Turkish kind.

This will all be fun, perhaps my end result will be made with maple syrup instead of honey.