Puff Pastry Baklava

I have been obsessed lately with puff pastry, since I found a dairy-free brand.  DuFour makes a pie and pastry dough that you can find in the frozen section of lots of grocery stores. I know I could make my own as there are probably hundreds if not thousands of recipes online for this, but I have to admit, at the moment, this is way easier!

Traditionally, baklava is made with phyllo dough, but that can be tricky to work with.  I have used it in a few recipes and I do love it, but it’s not the easiest thing for beginners to work with.  I have heard from lots of people that they don’t want the hassle of dealing with something so delicate.  That’s why this is a recipe inspired by baklava, and not a traditional version.  I also cut down on the amount of honey that makes baklava so delicious and ooey gooey, while still keeping just enough in the recipe to have it be a sweet treat.

This brand of pastry is a bit smaller than some of the others, so my advice would be to increase the amount of filling if you have a larger piece of dough.  The important thing is to roll it out so that it is thin,(probably 1/8″) .  Also, if it softens out a lot while you are rolling it, you can pop it back in the fridge for a bit before putting the filling on and rolling it to make the rolling easier.  If the dough is too defrosted, it can be very sticky and difficult to roll and cut. You might want to roll the dough first, refrigerate it, make the filling, then roll and cut it.

Feel free to swap out walnuts for other nuts like pistachios or almonds or even do a mixture of nuts.  I do use unsalted nuts though as you do not need the extra salt in this recipe (or really any salt at all). The reason I cook the lemon and honey is so that the honey melts and spoons easily and evenly over the warm rolls when they come out of the oven.  Lastly, this recipe takes almost no time to come together, and there only a few ingredients, so it’s a perfect last minute recipe to make.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups walnuts, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• zest of 1 lemon
• pinch of cloves
• 1 sheet of puff pastry, rolled out from 8×5.5 to roughly 9×12
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 2 Tablespoons honey

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350
2. Roll out pastry.  Combine walnuts, cinnamon, lemon zest, cloves and spread out on pastry leaving a 1/2″ border all around.
3. Starting at the short end, roll up the pastry, using a little water to seal the edge.
4. Slice into 1/2″ slices and put each slice on a lined baking sheet.  Bake 30-40 minutes till golden.  Check at the 15 minute mark to make sure walnuts aren’t getting too brown.  If this happens, cover loosely with foil and continue baking.
5. Meanwhile, combine the lemon juice, water and honey in a small pot.  Boil, then simmer 5 minutes, uncovered.
6. When baklava comes out of the oven, pour the lemon and honey mixture over each slice and allow to cool.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  You can drizzle a little extra honey over the slices before serving.

Enjoy!