How to Make Homemade Baklava

Before assembling your baklava, please have all your ingredients ready. Prepare the nuts and spices, the honey syrup, and lay out your phyllo pastry between 2 damp dish towels. This recipe is super easy to make; follow the instructions below. 😋

1. Before beginning, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Prepare the Honey Syrup

1. In a saucepan on medium heat, combine the ingredients for the syrup – except for the lemon juice – set this aside until needed.
2. Use a whisk to combine the ingredients, dissolving the sugar and honey into the water.
3. Bring the glaze to a boil, stirring continuously for 3 minutes.
4. Turn down the heat and continue to heat the syrup until it has thickened and becomes the consistency of a light syrup. About 10-15 minutes. You can allow the syrup to reduce while you prepare the other ingredients.
5. Once the syrup reaches the desired consistency, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool slightly.
6. Add the lemon juice and whisk to combine. Set this aside until needed at the end when the pastry comes out of the oven.

Prepare the Nuts and Spices

1. To a food processor, add the nuts, cinnamon and ground cloves.
2. Process until the nuts have been broken up into small pieces. Be careful to avoid processing the nuts too much – you don’t want them powdered.
3. Take a couple of spoon fulls of the nuts (couple tablespoons) and set them aside for sprinkling on top of the baklava at the end.
4. Set aside the nuts until needed.

How to assemble the Baklava:

1. Lay out your damp (not super wet) dish towels on the countertop. Lay the phyllo pastry out – flat between the two damp towels. This is important in preventing the pastry from drying out and cracking. As you create the layers in the next steps, make sure you re-cover the pasty with the top towel, so it doesn’t dry out.
2. Please have your melted butter, prepared nuts, honey syrup and everything laid out and ready to assemble.
3. Brush some melted butter on the bottom of the baking dish.
4. On top of the butter lay 2 – 4 sheets of pastry. (I find that 4 is a good number)
5. On top of the pastry, brush on some melted butter.
6. Sprinkle on top of the melted butter, some of the spiced nuts
7. Repeat layering until all the nuts have been used. Layer order: Pastry, butter, nuts. The top and final layer should be pastry, then butter.
8. Using a very sharp knife, cut the baklava into squares about 1 inch (4 rows by 7 to make a total of 28 squares). For the knife to cut easily, you can brush it with butter first.
9. Put the baklava into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until the tops become golden.
10. Once the baklava comes out of the oven, pour the glaze/syrup evenly over the top. Make sure you do this while the baklava is still hot.
11. After pouring the syrup, sprinkle the reserved nuts over each square to make them look pretty! 😋
12. Allow the baklava to cool for at least a couple of hours before serving. If you’d like, you can also allow it to settle overnight before serving, but I find a couple of hours to sit works fine.