Olive Oil & Honey Baklava

Well, I reckon, Tim, the trick to phyllo... People get all in a tizzy about using phyllo. Yeah. But, honestly, once you start using it, you can't really go wrong. The trick, though, is to keep it in the packet until you're ready to use it. Yes. Right? So I'm going to get you to blitz up some nuts for me. So we've got some pistachios and walnuts and some almonds. Love it. So if you can blitz those up for me until it kind of looks like breadcrumbs. Can do. And, essentially, all we're going to do is layers of phyllo. I'm going to use extra virgin olive oil. And do you know what? Where do you think baklava came from? Is it turkey or grease or... I don't know. That whole area. I would have said turkey, I think. Yeah. That's what comes to my mind when I think of baklava. Yeah, so I think there might be some argument between those countries, but what I am going to argue, and it's an educated guess, I suppose, I don't know this for sure, but I would have thought they would certainly have made it with olive oil. What do you think? I think so. Not butter. Traditionally, yeah. Obviously, butter's great, but I think, traditionally, olive oil for sure. I think it's you, chefs, that have got on board with this and started doing it with butter. So I am going to argue that I'm doing it the traditional way. HE CHUCKLES All right, I'll give these a little... Give it a blitz. And all I'm doing is brushing each layer with my extra virgin olive oil. And I'm going to use a third of this whole packet. So we will use this whole packet of phyllo here. And just work... You don't need to panic and go too quickly because you're just going to brush it all with extra virgin olive oil. So let's... If you could perhaps sprinkle, Tim, about half of that nut mixture. We might reserve a little bit just to pop onto the top, but do about half. Sprinkle that over here. OK. Just all over? All over. Yeah, right to the edges. Love it. We're quite generous with our nuts here. Getting all of those good fats in there. Nuts are one of our best sources of magnesium, and you need magnesium for your brain, you need it for good sleep, you need it for your muscle actions. And a lot of people aren't getting enough magnesium. OK, I reckon that looks good, Tim. Pretty good. So I'm putting another third of my sheets, oiling between each sheet again. Then I'll do the final layer of nuts, finish with the remaining phyllo sheets. And then we score the top. That's really important to remember to do that before you put it in the oven. It's going in the oven at 180 for about half an hour until it's nice and golden brown. While this is baking in the oven, we're going to make the syrup that we'll pour over the top. I'm going to use this mixture of monk fruit. Have you used monk fruit much, Tim? No, I can't say I have. I think it's really amazing stuff. So it's all natural. It is natural fruit, the monk fruit. And it's called monk fruit because apparently the fruit fell down on a monk sitting under the tree, or so the story goes, and fell on his tea or something, and then, you know, was amazingly sweet, and he thought, this is incredible. Anyway, what's incredible about monk fruit is that it doesn't raise your blood glucose levels. It's a way of bringing down both the calories and the carbs, the sugar, in any kind of recipe. And it behaves just like sugar. So it's, you know, I'm able to dissolve it here. And this is a sugar mix, so it's not... This is not a sugar-free recipe. I did say healthier. Honey? Honey. Yes, please. We're going to... We are going to add some honey. You've got to have honey, and this is the real deal. We've got real honey here. Now, I'm going to add some cloves to this, and some fresh nutmeg, and some fresh ground cinnamon. This nutmeg, I'm going to grate about half of a whole nutmeg. You can buy it ready-grated, of course, but there's nothing like it being grated fresh. I love how you're packing lots of spices into your syrup mix as well. Yeah. It takes it to the next level. And we just want to reduce the liquid, so I'm going to simmer this, one, so that those spices kind of infuse into the syrup, but also then just to reduce the liquid part so that it's nice and thick. And then my little secret ingredient, if this is for adults only, sometimes I add a little liqueur in here. What's in there? But this is orange blossom water. Oh, can I smell it? So you could use... Yeah. Mmm. Nice. Orange blossom water or rose water, or, you know, sometimes I throw in a cheeky little liqueur. I'm just going to let that simmer, and then we'll let it cool, and by the time we take our baklava out of the oven, we pour the syrup over the top, let it cool down and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour, and then our baklava is ready to taste. So this is nicely chilled now in the fridge, and hopefully you're going to like the end result, Tim. Oh, it looks beautiful, and the smell, and it's so crispy. Beautiful. There we go. This is, like, the most beautiful sweet treat. If you've got a sweet tooth, it's pretty hard to beat this. I just had a little taste of the pastry, and the orange blossom really came through. Yeah, nice. I'm glad you like that little addition. All right, Mr Bone. Oh! Have a taste. Baklava, yes! Here I go. Mmm. So the trick there is to pour that syrup on when it's nice and hot, cos that's when the pastry really soaks up all that lovely syrup, and then just let it cool enough for you to then pop into the fridge, leave it for at least an hour, but actually, you know, with all that syrup on there, this will last for several days in the fridge. That is unbelievable. Crispy, nutty, sweet, but it's those spices that you put in the syrup that really make this, I think, a great way to showcase phyllo pastry. And, look, it's portion control, isn't it? You're not having too much. You're not eating the whole drink. You just have a little, little square.