Baklava

Ingredients

Filo pastry (about 20 sheets)

Butter, melted (for brushing)

Mixed nuts (such as pistachios, walnuts or almonds), chopped

Sugar

Ground cardamom

For the syrup

Sugar

Water

Lemon juice

Orange blossom water

Method

Preheat the oven to one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius / three hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit / Gas mark four.

Grease a seventeen centimetre by twenty-eight centimetre (eleven-inch by seven-inch) baking tray with butter.

Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan over low heat or in a microwave.

Layer the pastry:

Lay ten sheets of filo pastry into the tray, one at a time, brushing each with melted butter before adding the next.

Mix the filling:

In a bowl, combine the nuts, sugar, and cardamom.

Spread the nut mixture evenly over the layered pastry.

Top layers:

Lay the remaining pastry sheets over the nuts, brushing each with butter.

Cut a criss-cross pattern into the top layers of pastry.

Bake:

Place in the oven for about twenty minutes.

Lower the temperature to one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius / three hundred degrees Fahrenheit / Gas mark two and bake for a further thirty to forty minutes, until puffed and golden.

Do not let the top burn.

Cool slightly while preparing the syrup.

Make the syrup:

In a small saucepan, heat the sugar, water, lemon juice, and orange blossom water over medium heat for about twenty minutes, until the sugar has melted and a syrup forms.

Pour the hot syrup into the slits of the baklava and allow to cool completely.

Cut into small diamond shapes and serve.