Baklava

What do you make for dessert with Greek leg of lamb and Greek salad?  I immediately thought Baklava!  Baklava is a dessert that I have never attempted.  It certainly continues the Greek theme we had for Easter.  I searched the internet and found many baklava recipes.  I finally chose this one from Greekcuisine.com.

Ingredients

1 lb. Phyllo (pastry sheets)

1 1/2 cups Butter

1 lb. chopped fine (or walnuts) Almonds

1/2 cup Breadcrumbs

1/4 cup Sugar

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/2 teaspoons Cloves

For the Syrup

4 cups Sugar

2 cups Water

1 juice of Lemon

Method

Place 1 pastry sheet in well-buttered baking pan and brush with butter. Place second pastry sheet on top of the first and butter again. Repeat until 6 layers of buttered pastry sheets have been built up.

Mix walnuts or almonds, breadcrumbs, sugar, cinnamon and cloves. Sprinkle top pastry sheet thick with walnut mixture and place two buttered pastry sheets over this. Repeat in same manner until all ingredients have been used, ending with 6 pastry sheets.

Brush top with remaining butter and trim edges with sharp knife. Cut diagonal lines the length of the pan to make diamond shaped pieces. Sprinkle with water.

Bake in moderate oven for about 1 hour or until golden.

Prepare syrup: boil sugar, water and lemon juice for 10 minutes. Pour hot syrup over cooked baklava. Allow to stand several hours before serving. 

I used almonds and chopped them in a food processor.  I was so sure I had cloves in my cupboard, but I could not find any when I started making this.  So, I substituted some freshly grated nutmeg instead.  Otherwise I followed this recipe the best that I could.  I realized that there is no specific temperature for the oven.  I decided 325 degrees was a "moderate oven."  This is the oven temperature for other baklava recipes that I had seen.  As I layered the phyllo and filling I ran out of filling before the phyllo.  There's no specific amount suggested for each layer of filling.  I used about 2/3 of the 1 lb. box of phyllo.  Maybe I should have had thinner layers of filling?  I baked the baklava for 1 hour and poured the syrup over it while it was still hot.  I let it soak for 5 hours before we tasted it.

The Results...
I was disappointed with how this turned out.  It was too syrupy, too sweet and soggy.  I'm not sure if the recipe is to blame or my inexperience or both.  The layering of the phyllo and the filling was tedious and time consuming which made this experience even more frustrating because it didn't turn out well.  I feel like I never want to make baklava again!  If I ever change my mind and decide that I want to attempt baklava again I will try a different recipe.  They can't all be winners.