Baklawa for the dummies

Ingredients
  1. Two rolls of puff pastry.
  2. 300 gr of mixed nuts (or just almonds).
  3. 10 gr of butter.
  4. 80 gr of sugar.
  5. 15 cl orange blossom essence 
  6. 1 s cinnamon powder.
  7. 1 egg yolk.
  8. 100 gr of blanched almonds for decoration.
For the syrup :
  1. 1 cup of water.
  2. 1/2 cup of honey.
  3. 2 s of orange blossom essence.
Instructions
The traditionnel way of doing baklawa can take hours of work but because my mum knew that I can't afford spending hours in the kitchen with my busy life she made up this easy to do version with actually a very decent result.
  • Start by preheating the oven (180°C).
  • Chop the the nuts with a food processor but not really to a powder you still want to have small pieces of nuts.
  • Mix the chopped nuts + sugar + cinnamon + egg yolk + the orange blossom essence. You should get a porridge like consistency.
  • Butter an oven dish and then lay in the first puff pastry roll. Cut any excess of dough. 
  • Fill the dough with the nuts mixture.
  • Put on top the second puff pastry roll.
  • With a knife, cut to the bottom of the dish diamond shaped pieces.
  • Stick in each piece a blanched almond (half of the almond would go into the baklaw, it helps maintaining the top layer of dough).
  • Melt the remaining butter and use it to butter the top of the baklawa.
  • Put the baklawa in the oven for 1 hour.
  • In the meanwhile prepare some sirup by boiling the water + honey + orange blossom essence until it thickens (well like a syrup but not as thick as honey).
  • Once you take the baklawa out of the oven pour the syrup on it and let it stand.
  • Once cooled down you can enjoy it with a nice green tea with mint or any other beverage of your choice !