Azerbaijani Baklava: A Step-by-Step Recipe for Making at Home

We begin making baklava by kneading the dough. There are various recipes online, including those using kefir, but the most delicious baklava is made with yeast dough mixed with milk and sour cream.

Place pre-sifted flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the center, into which pour warm milk.

Add a pinch of salt, sugar, vanilla sugar, and sour cream to the milk. Mix all ingredients thoroughly with a spatula.

Add 3 egg yolks and melted butter. Mix all ingredients together, first in the center with the liquid component, and then, adding the flour in the bowl.

The dough for baklava should be quite dense, as in the photo.

The finished dough needs to be given about 30 minutes to activate the yeast.

While the dough is rising, prepare the syrup and filling.

To prepare the syrup, combine 500 grams of sugar (you can replace some of it with honey if you wish), 250 ml of water, a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and a pinch of saffron stamens in a saucepan.

Heat the syrup until the sugar dissolves and reduce slightly. Foam may form during cooking; skim it off.

Dry the walnuts in a frying pan or in the oven, then crush them with a rolling pin or a blender.

Add 400 grams of sugar and a teaspoon of cardamom to 500 grams of nuts. Mix everything thoroughly.

Divide the dough into 14 pieces. You should end up with 12 pieces weighing 80 grams each, plus two pieces larger (just halve any leftovers).

Roll out a large lump of dough into a thin sheet and transfer it to a pre-prepared baking sheet, as shown in the photo.

Generously coat the first layer of dough with melted butter.

Place the second layer of dough (without the nuts yet) and brush with butter again.

Sprinkle the second layer with the nut-sugar filling.

Repeat the process again, alternating layers of dough and filling. This means that the first and second-to-last sheets of dough should be without filling (only greased).

Lastly, roll out a large piece of dough and, using a culinary spatula (or a regular spatula), tuck the top layer into the sides.

Next, you need to cut the dough into beautiful diamonds, 3.5-4 cm thick, because traditional Azerbaijani (Baku) baklava is served exactly in this form.

Cover the diamonds with egg yolk beaten with vegetable oil to form a beautiful crust while the dough is baking.

Decorate the dish with walnut kernels and place in the oven preheated to 160 ℃.

After keeping the baking sheet in the oven for 10 minutes, take it out, cut out diamonds again and generously pour melted butter into the cuts.

After this, bake the dish for another 50-60 minutes, until a beautiful golden brown crust forms.