Persian Baklava

Ingredients for syrup

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup honey

1/2 cup rosewater

Ingredients for layers

1/2 cup light brown sugar

500g pistachios

500g blanched almonds

2 tbsp cardamom

1 tsp cinnamon

15 frozen phyllo pastry sheets

1/2 cup melted butter, plus more

Method

Make the syrup first. It needs to be cold when the Baklava is removed from the oven after an hour of baking. The rule is - cold syrup on hot baklava or hot syrup on cold baklava. We wanted the pastry to be hot! We also wanted to eat it as soon as it was done so if you agree I reccomend the cold syrup version.

Place 1 cup sugar, 1 cup honey, rosewater in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes then remove from heat and cool. When cool refridgerate to make cold.

Place 1/2 cup sugar, pistachios, almonds, cardamom, and cinnamon in food processor and pulse till mixture is like breadcrumbs with some larger pieces of nut. You can see from the picture that ours was quite coarse, which was nice however it did fall apart more easily than I imagine a finer crumb would. Nevertheless, I wouldnt change what we did.

Butter a large baking tray with edges. Lay down 5 sheets, brushing butter each sheet.

 Sprinkle over a layer of the nut mixture.

Follow this with another 5 buttered sheets. Repeat until all used up or until you reach the height of the tray.
Brush the last layer with butter and then using a sharp knife cut the pastry diagonally into diamond shapes.
You can press it down - that will help it hold together later anyway.

Bake for 180 degrees C for 1 hour.
Pour sugar syrup over top and enjoy!
Garnish with rose petals

Thanks Sal and Eliza for being such good cooking buddies.