About the Recipe
A traditional eastern Mediterranean dish (I do not want to offend anyone with these geographic allocations so will remain vague) that I have slightly adapted.
It is as delicious as ever but this recipe does not require nuts and makes the most of the nutty flavour of sesame seeds when combined with other varieties of seeds and toasted.
Ingredients
Use a seed mix, if not you can mix together sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. Should total to around 150g - roughly half a packet.
1 box of phyllo
Around 250 g butter melted (you might need more/less depending on a variety of factors so do accomodate for that when making it)
100g dried apricots
Zest of 1 orange
2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon
For the syrup
70g sugar
3 tablespoons of honey
Water to cover the mixture
Juice of 3 oranges
Zest of 2 oranges
Teaspoon of cinnamon
Preparation
For the pastry
Toast the seeds: combine all the seeds and toast on low heat for a couple of minutes. Trust your nose on this one, you should be able to smell it when it is done but it should not smell burnt at all.
Prepare the filling: zest the orange onto the sugar in a seperate bowl - this ensures all the oils in the zest combine thoroughly with the sugar. Add the cinnamon to the seeds, mix, then add the sugar and mix again.
Phyllo: melt the butter in a small pot. Place each sheet of pastry individually into a baking dish, using a sharp knife to cut excess and brushing on butter after each sheet. You can then use excess to make up the next layer, as a sort of geometry game. I did 7 layers in the bottom before adding one lot of filling then another 4 layers then the rest on top. Cut it into your desired shape as it will not be possible to do so after it has baked. To give it that 'traditional' look you cut vertical lines then instead of horizontal make diagonal cuts.
For the syrup
Put all your ingredients into a pot and stir whilst heating. Reduce it to a thin syrup consistency. You can check this by dipping a spoon into it, removing the spoon then wiping your finger across the back to see how neat the seperation of the liquid is.
Once the baklava is cooked, pour over the syrup - I suggest you film this bit as it sounds as amazing as it looks!