Description
This vegan baklava is nutty, light but dense, and full of flavour. Super simple to make and with only 5 ingredients, you’ll be wondering why you haven’t made it sooner!
Ingredients
- 4 cups / 480g walnuts
- 1 cup / 250ml macadamia oil (or other neutral oil)
- 375g / 13.22 ounces phyllo pastry (filo)
- 2 cups / 320g coconut sugar
- 2 cups / 500ml water
- 1 lemon, cut into thin slices
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius (355 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Oil the bottom of a baking dish around 23cm x 33cm / 9.05 inches x 12.99 inches.
- Start off with blending half the walnuts in your food processor using an S blade and blend until it almost turns into a walnut meal. Add in the other half of the walnuts and pulse until you have some smaller chunks of walnuts left. I like to have some chunkier bits in here to have a more textured baklava.
- Place 2 sheets of the phyllo on the bottom of the baking dish, leaving the sides to hang out of the dish a little.
- Using an oil brush, oil the phyllo pastry and sprinkle evenly with 1½ tablespoons of walnuts. Make sure to also get some in the corners.
- Fold one sheet of the phyllo in half and place on top. Coat this layer with macadamia oil.
- Continue this process of layering until you have run out of walnuts. You may have one sheet of phyllo left over at the end.
- To finish it off, top with 2 phyllo sheets and tuck and overlap the phyllo on the sides. Coat with macadamia oil and place in the oven.
- Bake for 50 minutes until the top of the phyllo becomes golden brown (as pictured in the image above).
- While the baklava is baking, place the coconut sugar and water in a saucepan and stir over a low-medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a gentle simmer for 7-10 minutes. You can cook it for longer if you want a thicker sauce. Make sure you don’t reduce it too much as you will need it to seep into the pastry.
- Once the pastry is done, cut it into diamond shapes (as pictured in the image above) while it’s still hot. Pour ¾ of the syrup over the baklava aiming to get it in between the cut sections.
- Place the slices of lemon on top and pour the rest of the syrup over.
- Set aside to cool completely before serving.
- You can eat the lemon if you wish but it’s more there for that extra flavour whilst it cools and it looks pretty!
- Diet: Vegan
