Baku pakhlava

Ingredients

• Flour600 g
• Milk — warm200 ml
• Dry yeast7 g
• Ghee300 g
• Egg yolks3
• Walnuts — ground500 g
• Sugar400 g
• Ground cardamom1 tsp
• Saffron1 pinch
• Honey200 g
• Walnut halves — to decorate40
• Salt1 pinch

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and knead a dough with the flour, yolks, a spoon of ghee and salt.

   18 min

2. 2

   Let the dough rise an hour somewhere warm and divide it into eight equal balls.

   70 min

3. 3

   Mix the ground walnuts with half the sugar and the cardamom; that is the filling.

   8 min

4. 4

   Roll the first ball to the size of the tin, lay it in and brush it generously with ghee.

   12 min

5. 5

   Alternate layers of dough and nut filling, buttering each, until the dough runs out.

   35 min

6. 6

   Cut it into diamonds right down to the base, press a walnut half into each and brush with saffron infusion.

   15 min

7. 7

   Bake at 180 °C for forty-five minutes and pour over a hot syrup of honey and the remaining sugar.

   55 min

About the dish

Azerbaijani pakhlava is built on a yeasted dough rolled thin rather than on filo. There are exactly eight layers, and in Baku that count is kept.

The top is brushed with saffron infusion rather than egg yolk. That turns the crust yellow-orange, and Baku pakhlava is told from the Turkish by that colour.

It is cut into diamonds before baking and a nut is pressed into the centre of each. Cutting it afterwards is impossible: the layers shatter.

Worth knowing

• — The syrup goes onto hot pakhlava and is left overnight. In that time it soaks in completely and the layers set.
• — Cut right down to the base of the tin. Layers cut short do not take the syrup from below and stay dry.
• — Do not stint on the ghee between layers. Being sparing gives fused layers instead of flaking ones.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

9 g

Fat

32 g

Carbs

52 g

More from Azerbaijan

• Shah plov — Pilaf baked in a crown of lavash. The crust holds its shape and is cut in wedges like a pie.
• Kufta bozbash — A clear broth with one large meatball per portion, a dried plum and apricot hidden inside it.
• Azerbaijani dolma — Vine leaves with lamb, rice and mint, cooked under a weight, with garlic matsoni.