What is baklava?
Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of thin filo dough filled with chopped nuts, such as pistachios or walnuts, and soaked in syrup or honey.
To make baklava, bakers brush many paper-thin sheets of filo dough with melted butter and stack them with layers of chopped nuts. The pastry is cut into diamond or square shapes before baking. After baking, hot syrup made from sugar, water and lemon, or honey, is poured over it, soaking into the layers.
Baklava is popular across Turkey, Greece, the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus, and several countries claim it. Its modern form was refined in the kitchens of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire. The city of Gaziantep in Turkey is especially famous for its pistachio baklava.
Traditions
Baklava is often served during holidays, weddings and celebrations, such as Ramadan and Eid. In Greece, some versions use 33 layers of filo, said to represent the years of Jesus's life. It is often eaten with Turkish coffee or tea.
Did You Know?
Gaziantep baklava received protected geographical indication status from the European Union in 2013, the first Turkish product to do so.