Eastern cuisine is famous for its sweets, but baklava is perhaps the most popular of them. An incredibly tasty dish made from thin puff pastry, each nation has its own filling. Azerbaijani baklava is made from yeast dough and has a delicate aromatic taste.
Extraordinary dessert
There is no consensus about when baklava (baklava) was invented. Some historians of the culinary business claim that the tradition of rolling the dough into the thinnest layer came from the Assyrians (about the 15th century), others - that it was prepared already in the 7th century BC. There is no doubt that baklava is a very tasty, juicy and, of course, high-calorie delicacy. Despite the seeming complexity of the recipe, it is quite easy to cook Azerbaijani baklava even at home.
Universal recipe
Azerbaijani baklava (in another way it is also called Baku) is a multilayer dessert made of puff yeast (this is the difference between this type of delicacy and others like it), the filling of which consists of nuts and spices, and the impregnation is made of honey syrup. To prepare this oriental sweetness, the following ingredients are required:
Dough:
- 5-6 g dry yeast;
- 150 g butter;
- a pinch of salt;
- 250 ml of milk (can be diluted with 100 ml of milk and 150 g of sour cream);
- 2 eggs;
- 500 g flour;
- 30 g of sugar.
Filling:
- 500 g of shelled walnuts;
- 5-6 g cardamom;
- 300 g of sugar;
- 50-100 g of butter.
Syrup:
- 100 ml of hot water;
- 150-180 g of honey;
- 150 g of sugar.
For lubrication:
- 1 yolk;
- 10 g of water;
- a pinch of saffron, - 100 g of butter.
To prepare the dough, dissolve the yeast in warm milk (if with sour cream, pour it in after the yeast "starts"), add salt, eggs, sugar and mix thoroughly. Then add the cooled melted butter to the mass and stir in the flour. Cover the resulting dough with a napkin and leave to "rest" for an hour.
For the filling, lightly dry the nuts in a pan and, mixing with the other indicated ingredients, chop. Divide the dough obtained earlier into 12 equal parts, and make one larger and set aside. Roll out each layer with a diameter of no more than 2 mm, and in shape - slightly larger than the size of the baking dish.
Place the first two layers on a baking sheet and brush with melted butter, then put the filling, a new layer of dough on it, and so on until the end. It is advisable to fix the last layer with the first, coat it with yolk and saffron mixed with water and decorate with halves of nuts.
Cut the resulting dessert into diamonds (but without touching the mold) and place in the oven, preheating it to 200 ° C. After 15 minutes, pour melted butter over the sweet mass and put in the oven at 180 ° C for another 25 minutes. Pour the syrup over the finished dessert and let it soak (ideally, within 24 hours). Optionally, add cinnamon, vanilla and powdered sugar to the baklava.
