This post is not nearly as exciting as the title, like the headlines on cable news. What I am actually referring to is baklava, a Greek pastry with flaky layers of phyllo dough, nuts and honey. I discovered baklava when I was a freshman at U of M. There was a food truck that sold those dainty delicacies for $.65 apiece, which seemed like an extravagance for my budget at that time. I have made baklava twice now, but the first time was by accident. I had meant to buy puff pastry. Since I was stuck with phyllo, but not necessarily the other ingredients, I cheated and sprayed on butter flavor Pam instead of brushing with melted butter. Since those cookies were one kind among the many I made for a family celebration, I don't really remember how they turned out.
But this week's baklava debacle was intentional, I deliberately bought phyllo dough, mistakenly thinking that making the pastry was the hard part of crafting baklava. I found a recipe online that looked fairly simple. Unfortunately, the woman who submitted it must have been fairly simple too, or math dyslexic, because the proportions she listed would never produce the desired results. Baklava is simply a matter of layering phyllo dough, butter and chopped nuts. But phyllo dough, even the ready-made kind is thin and hard to work with, far beyond the skill level of someone like me who can't laminate a name tag or put tape on a package without wrinkling it. And, instead of selling the dough in 9 x 13 sheets which would fit the most commonly used size pan, it is slightly bigger so requires trimming. Which requires a sharp knife. Which I seldom have in my kitchen. Which is the safest course for someone who can't handle tape.
One of the reasons I chose this recipe was because it uses three phyllo sheets per layer instead of one, giving me fewer opportunities to mess up. However, the recipe also called for two cups chopped nuts using two tablespoons for each layer. Since two cups of chopped nuts equals 32 tablespoons and a roll of phyllo has 18 sheets, at 3 sheets per layer using 2 tablespoons nuts per layer only uses 3/4 cup. Since I had foolishly followed the recipe, I tried to catch up by using single layers of dough and piling on the pecans. In spite of numerous nuts, the amount of dough she said to use would never make the pan 3/4 full like her recipe specified. Fortunately, phyllo dough comes in two rolls so I broke into the other pack for more layers. The next step is scoring the layers into diamonds, which requires the same sharp knife I did not have for trimming. At each end of the diamonds, you insert a whole clove--at last a use for the cloves I bought to stud a ham decades ago. I did not care if they had lost flavor through the years because I don't like cloves anyway.
While the pastry is baking, you simmer water, sugar and a cinnamon stick. I hope there is no expiration date on those either (how can tree bark expire?) but, just in case, I used the brown one and threw the white one away. I was so eager to use some of the honey that was turning to sugar in my cupboard that I failed to notice you were supposed to add it after the sugar mixture had simmered 10 minutes. Since I added the honey before cooking, all I could do was look for information on whether boiling honey would ruin the flavor. Naturally, I turned to the source of infinite wisdom--Google. Immediately up popped warnings that HEATED HONEY IS TOXIC AND HALLUCINOGENIC! Since I have microwaved honey many times to soften it for serving and none of the consumers, including me, were dead or delusional, I was somewhat skeptical. With good reason, as it turned out. The idea that heated honey is dangerous is promoted by Ayurveda folk medicine practitioners of the Asian subcontinent. Medical people in India consider them quacks. Google apparently considers them top of the list. Fortunately, websites below the quacks, were abuzz with information from actual beekeepers. Since few bees can afford air conditioning, the temperature in the hive itself can be 95 degrees, so obviously that temperature is not harmful. Honey is heated both to pasteurize and to get it into the cute little bears we buy at the store. Ayurveda aside, heating may destroy some of honey's nutritional value and enzymes but it is not harmful. Which is good because, when you pour hot syrup over pastry just baked in a 350 degree oven, it bubbles up like lava. Baklava, baked lava, coincidence? I think not.
Did it taste good? Yes. Was it worth the effort? No. Did I discard the recipe? Definitely. Its writer either does not understand math or has overindulged in heated honey. And yet, I hate to see anything go to waste, and I need to find some way of using up the rest of the phyllo, so I may be back--with a sequel.
