I love baklava! And it’s relatively healthy-ish, with all the nuts. Nuts are pretty dense in terms of fat and calories, but they also add A TON of nutrition (and heart healthy oils, and fiber). Most Americans don’t eat nearly enough nuts, and this is a great way to get them in!
Instead of slathering each layer of phyllo dough with butter, I used butter-flavored nonstick spray, which lightens the pastry up quite a bit.
Baklava is typically very sweet, but the sugar is only a sweetener, which makes it easy to remove if you want to. You can feel free to adjust the amount of sugar up or down to your preference. I used ¼ cup of sugar, but you can use less if you want.
You may also enjoy my recipe for Baklava Baked Oatmeal.
Baklava
Servings: 16
Calories: 170kcal
Ingredients
Nut Filling
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- ½ cup chopped almonds
- 2 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1T tsp ground cinnamon
Pastry
- 12 sheets phyllo dough
- 2 tablespoon margarine (I used Smart Balance)
- butter flavored nonstick spray
Honey-Cinnamon Syrup
- ½ cup honey
- 2 tablespoon water
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 strip lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
Make the nut filling
- Put the nuts in a food processor and pulse a few times until the nuts are somewhat finely chopped.
- Stir in the granulated sugar, cinnamon and toasted sesame seeds.
- Set aside. This step can be done well in advance.
Assemble the pastry
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Lightly spray an 8×8-inch baking dish with nonstick spray.
- Take 12 sheets of phyllo pastry and cut them in half. You'll end up with 24 smaller sheets.
- Lay 2 sheets of phyllo pastry in the bottom of the baking dish. Spritz lightly with butter-flavored nonstick spray.
- Repeat. Lay 2 more sheets of phyllo pastry in the bottom of the baking dish. Spritz again with butter-flavored nonstick spray.
- Repeat. Lay 2 more sheets of phyllo pastry in the baking dish. (Your pastry should now be 6 sheets deep.)
- Sprinkle ⅓ of the nut mixture on top of the phyllo pastry.
- Drizzle 2 teaspoons of margarine on top of the nut mixture (as evenly as you can get it; it won't be exactly even.)
- Lay 2 more sheets of phyllo pastry on top of the nut mixture, and lightly spritz it with butter-flavored nonstick spray.
- Repeat twice more. Again, you want your next layer of pastry to be 6 sheets deep.
- Sprinkle the second third of the nut mixture on top, and drizzle with 2 more teaspoons of margarine.
- Stack another 6 phyllo sheets, lightly spraying every other layer with nonstick spray. Sprinkle the remaining ⅓ of the nuts, and drizzle with margarine,
- Lightly spray and stack the remaining 6 phyllo sheets.
- Use a sharp knife to slice the pastry into 16 squares.
- Place in the oven and bake for about 40 to 50 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden brown.
Make the syrup
- While the pastry bakes in the oven, stir together the honey, water, lemon zest and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Bring the saucepan to a boil over medium-high heat.
- When the honey mixture comes to a boil, turn the heat down to medium or medium-low, and let the honey simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes.
- Remove the honey syrup from the heat and stir in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
- When the pastry comes out of the oven, pour the syrup over the pastry right away.
- Allow the pastry to cool before trying to eat it (it will be very hot.)
