4tablespoonsGhee or butter (or cooking oil for dairy free)Check out how to make: Ghee - Clarified Butter Recipe (Value for nutritional purposes, we'll need more to easily brush the dough
Instructions
Syrup
Bring water, honey, orange extract and optional cloves to boil. Remove from heat then let it cool to room temperature.
Remove cloves if used then mix in lemon juice.
Pastry
Peel then grind pistachio and walnut. Both will take a while so buying peeled ones is a huge time saver. Also one can be substituted with the other just stick to the correct weight.
Using a food processor, crush them. Don't need to pulverize them, just give a couple of pulse that chops them up. Add cinnamon and if any optional honey is used add it now.
Brush the bottom of baking dish with ghee or butter then place the first layer of phyllo dough in. Depending on the size of phyllo sheets and baking dish, we may need to cut the sheets to match the size of our baking dish.
In our case, the baking dish is about half the size of the phyllo sheets so we can simply fold the dough in half. Of course, we need to brush ghee or butter between the folded layers, too.
There is no steadfast rule about the number of layers here. Use ⅓ of the filo sheets available for the first layer. Greeks like to make 33 layers in their Baklava which makes 11 sheets for each layer.
Spread half of the ground pistachio and walnut filling evenly at the top of the first layer.
Carry on with the second layer of phyllo, brushing between each and every layer. Don't need to soak the dough with ghee or butter but only a thin coat of fat needed to keep the layers from sticking together.
Once we use up the second third of our phyllo sheets which makes so far 22 layers in the Greek way, spread the remaining half of the filling evenly on top of the second layer.
Continue with the third layer which will see us using the last third of our dough and reach 33 layers in the Greek way. Brush the top with ghee or butter then get the sharpest knife to cut the baklava up.
Place the baklava into the middle rack of a 350°F / 180°C preheated oven until its top turns golden brown, about 30 - 40 minutes.
Once the top is golden and crispy, take the baklava out and immediately pour the honey lemonade syrup over it as evenly as possible. It will sizzle which is completely normal and desirable effect. Let it cool completely.