Consider: Baklava

Waxing phyllo-sophical.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers! We really appreciate your membership and hope to keep earning the time you spend with us. Of the thousands of subscribers, we have only ever had five unsubscribes (and one was my neighbour!), which is the stat we are proudest of! Special thanks to Randa from hotsingles.nyc for helping to review this week’s issue.

Ever wonder why some foods seem to be everywhere? I don’t mean how you can find McDonald’s all over the world. Rather, things like kebab style grilled meats can be found anywhere there is fire and animals. Regional differences abound, but you can find variations on ground beef formed around a skewer and grilled in Morocco, India, Bulgaria, Croatia, Mongolia, and so many other countries. …I likely just offended more readers than I recognized. Pizza is another example, with regional varieties like manakeesh, pide, Khachapuri and enough others to drive my spell check crazy.  

Baklava/pakhlava/ Ružice/pakhlava/Փախլավա (throwing in the Armenian to see if my business partner Kareen really reads this) is another such food. With regional variations from Turkey to Greece to Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East, the sweetened assembly of nuts and pastry is a universal demonstration of hospitality.

I have been known to sing “baa baa baklava” (sung to the tune of baa baa blacksheep) to myself multiple times a week (only surpassed by my other masterpiece, I’ve got chicken finger hoagies on my mind sung to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It). What makes this a considered-worthy investigation is exploring the regional variances of baklava throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Northern Africa and questioning why it didn’t spread further. Why is there no historically North American variant? Also, baklava is delicious and writing this article required a lot of “research”. The small bites help you forget how much you are eating, and all the different shapes and sizes provide for a level of variety challenged only by a Vegas buffet. 

Design

Baklava enters the historical record through the kitchens of the Topkapi Palace in Turkey. In use until 1860, the palace is immaculately preserved and built on a scale that needs to be seen to be understood. On the 15th of the month of Ramadan, the Sultan would present trays of the dessert to his guards. Paintings and records of this event are primary to Turkey’s baklava heritage.

Artist depiction of a Festival of Sweets during Ramadan in Turkey.

The debate about the origins seems pretty contentious, with a strong case that Turkish and Greek cultures both worked from a Roman recipe called “placenta cake.” This was a layered dessert where dough sheets were soaked in milk and sugar and layered with nuts. Sounds pretty close to baklava to me. 

 Baklava is made by layering very thin phyllo dough, with melted butter and adding one or multiple layers of chopped nuts. It is then cut into shapes and baked. Once it comes out of the oven, it is doused in a syrup that is usually sugar mixed with water or honey.

This week I had the opportunity to speak with Ismail, who owns Crown Pastries (one of my favourite baklava bakeries in Toronto) with his brother Rasul. Unfortunately, they did not try to bribe me with delicious product. Ismail and his brother Rasul have been making baklava since they were kids. Their grandfather owned a sweet shop in Aleppo, Syria where they would work during the summers growing up. They opened their first Crown Pastries location in 2015, and have since expanded to three locations, where they make more than 30 different types of baklava.

Regional variations are inspired by available ingredients. Iranian baklava (or baghlava, in farsi) features cardamom and pistachio prominently. Greek baklava has cinnamon and is usually 33 layers (one for each year of Jesus’s life). The farther east you go, the more likely the syrup is flavoured with rose or orange blossom. Lebanese baklava can include lemon in the syrup. As you move closer to the Balkans, you will find use of spices like clove. Syrian baklava is more nut forward and has less syrup than Greek baklava. It is fascinating how local crops and habits have created so many localized versions of baklava. 

A universally accepted fact: baklava is delicious.

Baklava from the Turkish region of Gaziantep might be the most well known. It has EU protected geographical indication (a similar designation to Champagne; you can make it anywhere, but only sparkling wine made in Champagne can be called Champagne). Gaziantep is a classic phyllo and pistachio variety, and wow, does it ever look good.

A perfect nut to dough ratio.

Baklava can take many shapes and sizes, from cigar shapes and pinwheels to squares and diamonds. It has expanded to be a catch-all name for a category of desserts. Basically, middle eastern petit fours.  Some of my favourite non-phyllo types include Karabige, a semolina cake that has a marshmallow type layer and is dusted with nuts. Knafeh, while not technically baklava, is a spun, string-like pastry (think very thin noodles) that are layered over cheese, the whole thing is baked and then covered in syrup. Ismail recommended atayef, a pancake-like pastry prepared for Ramadan that is wrapped around either a white cheese or nuts and then fried. 

Innovation

We have written about regional desserts before. One of our most popular posts is Kevin’s look at shortbread, which even made its way to Scottish Reddit. 

What I find interesting is that foods like kebab kept moving across the globe but baklava never moved much farther west than the Black Sea. The ingredients were readily available, from flour to dairy to nuts and honey. So, I went looking for an answer, ideally one to support my hypothesis that sugary desserts are less popular in countries with higher levels of alcohol consumption, and I was proven to be correct.

In the 1400s, sugar was more readily available in the Middle East and Mediterranean than it was in other parts of the world. This likely inspired the cultivation of sweets and the idea that food can be so much more than sustenance. Reader Michael S. inspired this theory when he asked me to meet him at a local pub for a drink and instead of ordering a beer he got a hot chocolate and crème brûlée. It had never previously occurred to me that was an option! 

The occasions when you would eat baklava are similar to the occasions when you might gift wine or spirits. Holidays, visits from friends, etc. are all common baklava occasions. In Turkey there is a saying “I am not rich enough to eat BAKLAVA everyday”. Sounds similar to peoples feelings about Champagne (for a deeper dive, check out our article about Louis Roederer). Pre-Covid, baklava towers were a common sight at weddings and other “simchas.”

Uhh I’ll catch up with you later…

Baklava as alcohol replacement gains more credibility as a theory when you think about how it changed as it travelled. Baklava’s delicious cousin, strudel, saw the sugar content go down as the availability of alcohol went up in the countries where it was consumed.

Ramadan, the Muslim holy month where those who observe abstain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset, is a busy time for baklava bakeries. In Turkey, Eid al-Fitr, the feast to celebrate the end of Ramadan, is known as Seker Bayrami, the feast of sweets.  Ismail said that in addition to Ramadan, Eid is a busy time for Crown Pastries. Christmas and Easter are also busy times, suggesting both a popularity with non-Muslim Arabs and that baklava's popularity has grown outside the Arab community.

Cost

Priced by the kilo, you will see pricing in the $20USD to $40USD range. While delicious when eaten fresh, because of the syrup and the way in which it is prepared, baklava can survive being shipped. That being said, there is likely a great family-run bakery near you applying their lived experience and family traditions to making delicious treats.

PS

Speaking of Turkish desserts, I would be remiss not to mention Dondurma. A mastic-based ice cream (causing it to be stickier and thicker than dairy-based), it is made in a process similar to taffy. Sometimes you will even see it served with a knife and fork. 

Hopefully if you are ordering it you are not too hungry. Turkish ice cream vendors are notorious pranksters and take advantage of the ice cream's elastic properties to really mess with their customers. 

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