Pistachio Baklava
- Total Time
- 2½ hours, plus cooling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:36 pieces
- 2¼cups/300 grams shelled pistachio nuts
- 4sticks/2 cups/454 grams unsalted butter
- 1pound phyllo dough, defrosted overnight in the refrigerator
- 3cups/600 grams sugar
- Juice of ½ lemon, more to taste
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (26 servings)
332 calories; 20 grams fat; 10 grams saturated fat; 1 gram trans fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 36 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 24 grams sugars; 4 grams protein; 87 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
- Step 1
In a food processor, pulse the pistachios until coarsely ground (or you can chop them by hand until very finely chopped). Don’t overprocess the nuts. You want to maintain some texture.
- Step 2
Clarify the butter by melting it over low heat, then letting it cook until the foam rises to the top and the milk solids fall to the bottom of the pan. This will take about 5 to 15 minutes depending upon how high your heat is, but don’t rush it or the butter could burn.
- Step 3
Skim foam off the top of the melted butter. Line a fine-mesh sieve with a piece of cheesecloth, place it over a bowl and pour the melted butter through.
- Step 4
Heat oven to 400 degrees and brush the inside of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with a little of the clarified butter.
- Step 5
Prepare the phyllo dough by trimming the stack of it with scissors to fit the bottom of your baking dish. Packages of phyllo come in different sizes; some won't need any trimming, some may need an inch or two cut off a side, and some may need to be cut in half crosswise. Cover phyllo layers with a lightly damp kitchen towel, and keep covered.
- Step 6
Place 1 piece of phyllo on the bottom of the baking pan; brush lightly with clarified butter. Layer phyllo sheets on top, brushing each sheet with butter as you go, until half the phyllo is used.
- Step 7
Spread pistachios on phyllo in an even layer, then layer with remaining phyllo, brushing each sheet with butter as you go (rewarm butter if necessary).
- Step 8
Cut the pastry into 36 pieces, using clean up-and-down strokes and rotating the pan if necessary. Make sure to cut all the way through to bottom of pan. Pour any remaining butter evenly over pan.
- Step 9
Bake baklava until the top is golden brown, and the lower phyllo layers beneath the pistachios are thoroughly baked through. To test this, use a knife to lift up a corner of one of the pastry rectangles from the center of the pan so you can peek at the bottom layers. Start checking after 40 minutes, but it could take an hour or even 1 hour 10 minutes. If the top starts to get too brown before the pastry is cooked through, lay a piece of foil over the top.
- Step 10
Meanwhile, prepare sugar syrup: In a medium pot, combine sugar with 1⅔ cups/400 milliliters water. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 10 minutes, until slightly thickened. Stir in lemon juice.
- Step 11
When the baklava is baked through, reheat the syrup until it comes to a simmer. Remove pan from oven and place in the sink or on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips of syrup. Slowly pour hot sugar syrup over the pastry; it will bubble up and some may overflow. When the syrup stops bubbling, move pan to wire rack to cool completely. Serve at room temperature.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Helou
I learned to make baklava from 2 outstanding cooks, one Egyptian and one Turkish. Both agree that the syrup should be cold when added to the hot baklava. It results in the syrup being well absorbed into the pastry.
Additionally, get fresh, refrigerated fillo dough. It's much less likely to have those wet spots that result in torn sheets when the dough is defosted, and is easier to work with. I think the brand is Athens, and I find it in stores that sell Greek foods.
Marie
Cold syrup over hot pastry yields crunchy pastry. It doesn't get soggy as quickly.
Nur C
Honey is not used in authentic Turkish baklava. I am Turkish. My mom and aunts always used sugar syrup.
The syrup is very cold and poured over the hot baklava. That is the trick for crisp baklava.
Sebastian
One comment... Temperature should be closer to 350'F!!!! I burned my baklava at 400'F after 40min. :/
Susan Zee
My Armenian friend poured the syrup along the side, not across the top, and tipped the pan so that it ran underneath all of it. Deliciously sweet, but no soggy tops!
Melissa
I just made baklava, same proportions of dough and nuts, but only used 2 sticks of butter. I did what my Hungarian grandmother did, which is to sprinkle a pinch of dry bread crumbs between each dough sheet after buttering. The bread crumbs perform the same function as the butter, i.e.g keeping the sheets separate, without so much fat. I'm hardly one to skimp on butter generally, but it's unnecessary to use this much in baklava. I made two cookie sheets' worth with two sticks.
Judith
I was told that that honey is considered to have too strong a taste and that sugar syrup is used much more frequently than honey.
Lillian
Do you recommend raw pistachios or roasted/salted?
Ligia
You must always have the baklava cool and the syrup warm or the baklava warm and the syrup cold... that is how my Turkish friends and Turkish Armenian family taught me to make it and believe me, it will make a difference in the fluffiness of the finished product. If both are the same temperature, the baklava ends up being a slightly doughy.
Naz
My mom swears by an old recipe for Baklava that was once featured in the NYTimes. It's a recipe with walnuts and honey. Everyone devours it and it's downright addictive. Please please please find and repost that one. It's splendid.
margot
I'm wondering if you could use Gee which would be ready to go instead of processing it myself? Looks like a great recipe and just the thing for a cold winter day.
Caroline
You can mix any kind of nuts (Almond, Walnuts, Cashew etc...), but the pistachio is very special. I wouldn't use honey as it becomes too sweet. Melissa's recipe is well balanced.
Yavuz
This is the best recipe I have come across so far. Thank you for the share...
LindaK
A Lebanese friend turned me on to adding rosewater to the COLD syrup before pouring over the baked pastry. This adds a magnificent and unique, almost surprisingly mysterious taste to baklava. You MUST be gentle adding a few drops at a time, then tasting, repeat as necessary. Rosewater can become overpowering in a hurry and some brands are MUCH more concentrated than others.
Robert Galli
Probably way too late to respond to Desiree but Ghee IS clarified butter so I'm sure it would work. Here in Edison, NJ, I believe we have the largest Indian population in the US so getting Ghee is absolutely no problem and I immediately thought about it as I was reading step 2 !! Now to try to make a batch!
Best regards to all
pistachio question
Are roasted and salted pistachios ok to use? Or should they be raw?
MJCinOPK
As an alternative to lemon juice, try rosewater syrup (found at Middle Eastern grocery store). In the 1970s, my mother learned to make "Persian" baklava from Iranian students. It's been my go-to gold standard for 50 years. Walnut-honey is okay, but I don't love it like I do pistachio-rosewater.
Rebecca
Overall good! My first time making baklava. If I were to make it again, I would mix in a different type of nut and I would add something more to the filling, as the pure pistachio did nothing to bind the top layers to the filling. I think the syrup could have used more flavor, I’m interested in other commenters suggestions of rose water. Also I baked mine for 45’ and I think it was too long, my bottom layers were very dark.
ash
- Sugar syrup first, let it cool in the fridge. I agree with other notes: cold syrup and hot baklava = best results - 2 cups of sugar was just enough of sweetness for someone like me with a sweet tooth... - 3 sticks of butter is plenty - Start checking at 30-35 minutes; 40 had mine just under burnt to a crisp
Katrina
Total baklava newbie here...is this on a cookie sheet?
MJCinOPK
Yikes, no! The pan needs to be two inches deep to hold in the butter and then the syrup. I hope you didn't get burned.
Pat
Delicious and lighter than most baklava. I used a combination of lemon juice and rose water and poured on the syrup cold as others suggested. The temperature and bake time seemed too high. 350 for 30 minutes was plenty.
sululu
I’ve made this recipe twice in the last two weeks, it’s phenomenal but yes, I tried a couple of things differently the second time & liked it even better. 1. Both times, room temp syrup over the hot pastry 2. The clarified butter is key for even cooking 3. I like the pistachios fine for a candy like texture 4. I substituted 1/4 c of fresh squeezed OJ for 1/4 c of the water (still added the lemon juice at the end) 5. Added orange peel and a touch of cardamom to simmering syrup. To die for!
MJCinOPK
I also recommend cardamom. Hadn't thought of orange peel, but it makes sense.
Miriam
I assume the pistachio nuts should be unsalted. Should they be roasted or raw?
Jasmine
An instant favorite! Making ghee was definitely the way to go! Some modifications: add cardamom pods and bay leaf (and remove before pouring) to the sugar syrup. Toss pistachio with 1/4 cup of hazelnut, sugar, and cardamom powder. Rose water optional. I decided to have three layer of nuts instead of just one, with the middle layer being the thickest. Everyone loved it! Mine was baked in under 40 minutes!
Meghan
This was incredible. However, I didn’t use all the sugar syrup called for, and didn’t have cheesecloth so ended up with like, half clarified butter? Nonetheless, this was incredible. I food processed the leftover pistachios until it became dust and topped my baklava with that. Was absolutely lovely.
Hank in CT
Working from a recipe in Claudia Roden's cookbook "A Book of Middle Eastern Food" that is very similar to this one, I add orange blossom water to the syrup. (In Roden's book, less syrup is made—1 1/4 cups sugar, 1/2 cup water, and one tablespoon each of lemon juice and orange blossom water.) The orange blossom water adds a nice exotic perfume/taste to the syrup.
Andrea
Would you use 1lb (or equivalent) of ghee? Thanks!
DrDre2008
I looked at 5-6 recipes w/ this as my base b/c it is so simple (unlike Einat Admony's "Easy Baklava"). Took ideas from all. Used walnuts + pistachios. Had no rose water, but used zest from fresh oranges in both the syrup and nut mixture. Added a cinnamon stick. Did 3 layers of phyllo b/c the nuts seemed too thin. Had 2/3 c clarified butter left. Yum. Baked on 375º (compromise among recipes) for 35 minutes. Poured cooled syrup over warm baklava. Seemed like a lot, but all smells heavenly!
Kim
Fine recipe if you like a baklava that is not dominated by sweetness. It's worth it to review this recipe and notes. If you do, you might make the syrup first and let it cool in the fridge while assembling the baklava. Working with the phyllo takes focus: have a damp towel ready to keep the fragile sheets cool and fresh (they dry out quickly). Agree that dialing back on the amounts of butter and syrup is a good idea, but if you have some left you can always repurpose them.
Zarifa
Time, patience, and rest. I used rose essential oil from another recipe, - cardamon, and something else, misplaced or lost other recipe with rose water edition.
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