The Phyllo browned up nicely, maybe a little much on the bottom

Phyllo and Nuts… sounds familiar

Time: 2 hours 15 minutes

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

Difficulty: 3/5

This recipe reminds me a lot of baklava. I think a lot of the ingredients are the same, but it’s just the form factor that is different. I tried the phyllo pinwheels from What’s For Dessert, which turned out to be quite good, so I have high hoped for this recipe.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

I was able to find all the ingredients easily, so I didn’t leave anything out. I did substitute turbinado sugar for Demerara sugar. I used phyllo from over a year ago that I had in the freezer and it still worked, but It may have made some of the steps more difficult, as the dough sheets were pretty dry. (I still remember them being pretty dry the first time, though). You can use pretty much any nuts you want in any proportion you want, and I went with almonds, walnuts, pecans, and pistachios.

Tools:

Nothing Special

Cooking Review:

Prep: 12 minutes

While the oven preheated, I juiced the Lemond and melted the butter. As I used the microwave, I quickly learned that butter likes to explode and make a big mess if not watched closely. I microwaved the butter on power level five and I guess that was even too high as it began to melt more. Keep that in mind if you go that route.

Toast Nuts: 10 minutes

After measuring out the different nuts, I spread them out on a baking sheet and let them toast for 10 minutes. While they toasted, I went ahead and measured out the rest of the ingredients.

Nut Filling: 9 minutes

After the nuts had cooled a little bit, I transferred them to a gallon bag and used a rolling pin to crush them into smaller pieces. The crushed nuts were then pored into a bowl and the cardamom, butter, sugar, and other filling ingredients were mixed in.

Constructing Pie: 29 minutes

This is what made the difficulty level increase. While it seems like a pretty simple procedure, the fragility of the phyllo dough made it more difficult than you’d think. I placed a sheet of phyllo down on a parchment lined baking sheet and brushed it with the melted butter and sprinkled it with the sugar. I added another phyllo sheet and repeated until I had 8 sheets down. Due to the phyllo being rolled up in the packaging, it was prone to cracking when separating from the stack of dough and while brushing, so I had to be very careful. I added the filling on top of the 8th sheet of phyllo next. This was kinda tricky, as it seemed like the phyllo wasn’t quite large enough to fit all of the filling. I was able to get it all on the dough, however. Now, the recipe asks you to fold the dough up and over the filling. I was only able to do this on two sides, as the double fold that would happen at the corners just would not hold. Plus, cracking was still an issue here. Once I had given up on folding all four sides, I draped the remaining 4 sheets of phyllo on top and poured the remaining butter over the top.

Baking: 50 minutes

I let the pie bake for 50 minutes before removing from the oven to cool. It looked like a lot of the sugar and/or butter melted out and burned, but it was pretty easy to separate the majority of it.

Syrup: 15 minutes

I added the honey, water, and sugar to a small saucepan and brought it to a simmer. Once at a simmer, I let it reduce for 6 minutes before removing from the heat and adding the remaining lemon juice. This was then poured over the still hot pie after adding slits in the top using a pairing knife. Finally, I let the pie cool completely before serving.

Analysis:

The flavor of this pie is pretty similar to baklava, which means it’s very tasty. Of course, it’s incredibly crispy and crunchy and the nuts are actually on the softer side while still proving some nice textural contrast. The lemon flavor is pretty apparent, which I really like, as it kinda cuts down on how sweet this would be otherwise. The edges are kinda chewy and my favorite part is the super sugary and crispy bottom of the pie. Oh, yeah, and of course every bite is pretty buttery. I really enjoyed this dessert. Although it was a little more difficult than I was expecting, I was still able to get a good result. I’m going to give this recipe a 8/10. I think the other phyllo recipe from What’s for Dessert has a better bang for your buck and effort, but this definitely has more impressive flavors. If you don’t mind the extra effort and time, you should go with this one.

P.S.

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