Baklava

Baklava is a pastry made by layering thin sheets of dough, sandwiching a filling between them, baking it and then soaking it in syrup or a similar liquid. The many thin sheets shatter in the mouth, and the flavors of nuts and sweet syrup spread across the palate. It is found across Turkey, the Eastern Mediterranean, West Asia, the Balkans and the Caucasus. Besides pistachio-filled diamonds, there are walnut triangles, rolls wrapped around mulberry syrup, and even versions filled with cheese. Depending on what is layered and when the syrup is poured, pastries of the same name have different cross-sections.

Layering Thin Sheets of Dough and Distributing Fat Throughout

Baklava is not made like laminated puff pastry, in which fat is folded into a single piece of dough many times. Instead, thinly rolled sheets called yufka in Turkish and phyllo in Greek are stacked. In the specification for Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey, the dough is made from wheat flour, eggs, water and salt, and is rolled thin while being dusted with wheat starch. The dusting starch keeps the stacked thin sheets from sticking to one another.

Nuts are placed between the sheets, the upper layers are stacked on top, and the pastry is cut into pieces before baking. After it is baked with fat distributed throughout, it is soaked in syrup. This creates a contrast between the crisp bite of the thin upper sheets and the syrup-soaked lower part. The layers visible in a cut piece also change depending on where the nuts are placed, how thin each sheet is and how many sheets are stacked.

In Antep, the Method Changes Depending on Whether Milk Cream Is Used

Antep baklava uses local pistachios and refined milk fat. Some versions are filled with a cream made by heating milk and semolina, and others, called “dry,” contain no such cream. The two differ not only in their filling but also in the dough formula and the way fat is used.

In Antep, hot syrup is poured over the hot baked pastry, and honey is not used. “Dry” does not mean that no syrup is used. It refers to baklava that contains no milk cream and is suited to keeping.

The Many Kinds of Baklava Enjoyed in Turkey

In Turkish, Fıstıklı means filled with pistachios and Cevizli means filled with walnuts. Variation goes beyond changing the nut. Bülbül Yuvası, true to its name, “nightingale’s nest,” is a round shape with an open center in which nuts are placed. Sütlü Nuriye uses milk, which gives it a color and moistness different from versions made with clear syrup alone.

Zonguldak on the Black Sea coast has a white baklava that is not baked to a deep color, and this finish with restrained browning has also been handed down. Versions that use milk or cream and versions centered on nuts also differ in the moisture they contain and in their condition during storage.

Shell-shaped baklava made with walnuts. Thin sheets are layered. Photo: Samizambak, 2024-09-06, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version provided by the source; no additional processing.

Baklava from Beypazarı, Turkey. Layers of stacked thin dough and nuts are visible in the cut surface. Photo: Kultigin, 2006-06-18, Beypazarı, Ankara Province, Turkey. Original image / Public domain. Downscaled version provided by the source; no additional processing.

Differences in Shape and Filling Across Turkey

Muska baklava from Sivrihisar in central Turkey is made of thin sheets folded into triangles around walnuts placed in the center. A dough with added yogurt, eggs, olive oil and other ingredients is rested and rolled thin; the sheets are stacked and cut into squares, and then wrapped around the walnuts. Refined milk fat is poured over while hot and the pastry is baked. Both the pastry and the syrup are cooled to room temperature before they are combined. In one method, the syrup is poured just before serving and the rest is kept without syrup, and at tea or breakfast it is sometimes eaten without syrup.

Pekmez baklava from Erzurum in eastern Turkey is made by layering pistachios or walnuts on 3 thin sheets, adding concentrated mulberry juice and rolling them up. The rolls are cut and arranged, butter is poured over them, and they are baked in stages and then soaked in syrup as well. The juice concentrate gives a deep color and adds aroma. Its flavor also differs from versions finished with clear syrup alone.

Akşehir has peynir baklava, filled with fresh cheese made without added salt. A base of 7 thin sheets made with milk and eggs is laid down, and white cheese made from local cow’s or goat’s milk, or the whey cheese lor, is placed on top. This is covered with 7 more sheets and cut into squares. After baking and cooling, hot syrup is poured over it, and it is served while still warm. It is used at celebrations and offers a soft cheese filling to savor, unlike pieces of nuts.

Greek Baklava with Thread-Like Dough and the Choice of Fats During Fasting Periods

The version from Ioannina in northwestern Greece uses walnuts or almonds and wraps fine, thread-like kataifi in thin sheets. It offers both the layering of the thin sheets and the texture of the thread-like dough coming apart. Some versions highlight sheep’s or goat’s butter and others use cow’s butter, so the aroma of the fat also varies. Greek cook Ivy Vardanis writes that during Orthodox fasting periods she also makes baklava in which the butter is replaced with mildly scented olive oil or plant-based fats. On days when dairy is avoided, butter is not used. However, there are also days when olive oil is avoided, and which ingredients may be eaten depends on the rules of the fast.

Communal Preparation in Armenia and Bite-Sized Cups

In Armenia it is also called paklava, and diamond-shaped versions made with walnuts or pistachios and honey or flavored syrup are popular. The version from Gavar, near Lake Sevan, is listed in Armenia’s inventory of intangible cultural heritage. The inventory gives its former name as Bayazet pakhlava and explains that the method was brought with migration in the 1830s. It is made with walnuts, honey, clarified butter and sugar; 22 to 25 sheets are layered, cut into diamonds and baked, and honey is poured over it while hot. Women from among relatives and neighbors divided tasks such as selecting ingredients and making the dough, in a communal effort overseen by experienced elders, and it was an indispensable sweet for weddings and the New Year. Recipes (ingredient proportions and methods) carried from homes to new places of settlement have also gained later refinements. Culinary educator Robyn Kalajian has published a version in small phyllo cups filled with walnuts and cinnamon and finished with a lemon-accented syrup. Instead of baking a large tray and cutting it into pieces, the thin sheets are shaped into bite-sized cups.

The Use of Flower Waters and Butter in Iran and Lebanon

It has also been handed down in Iranian homes under the name baghlava. Homa’s published recipe builds 3 filling layers—almond, walnut and almond—each sprinkled with cardamom, cinnamon and sugar. These are sandwiched between sheets of phyllo, each brushed with butter, and baked. When the pastry has cooled to about body temperature, a hot syrup made by boiling honey and sugar and adding rose water is poured over it. It is a home method that layers the aromas of nuts and flowers, and it is served with black tea.

In families of Lebanese heritage, walnuts paired with an orange blossom water syrup can be found. In the method handed down in Maureen Abood’s family, phyllo is layered, walnuts mixed with sugar are spread in the middle, and more sheets are layered on top; the pastry is then cut into diamonds all the way to the bottom before clarified butter is poured in. Instead of brushing each sheet, the fat is distributed through the cuts. The step of pouring cold syrup over the hot baked pastry also differs from the Antep and Iranian examples. It was also a family gift, delivered to homes on large trays at Christmas.

Thin Sheets and Almonds in Constantine

North Africa also has baklawa, with nuts sandwiched between thin sheets. A pastry maker who presents a method handed down at home in Constantine, Algeria, rolls out a dough of flour with refined milk fat and orange blossom water by hand, one sheet at a time. In one example with 5 sheets below and 4 above, crushed almonds, sugar, cinnamon and orange blossom water are placed in between. The pastry is cut into diamonds before baking, and cold honey scented with orange blossom water is poured over the hot pastry and left to soak in for a long time. Although it shares thin sheets and nuts with them, it differs from Antep’s pistachios and syrup and from Lebanon’s walnuts and orange blossom water in its ingredients and in the temperature at which the liquid is poured.

In this maker’s family, the grandmother is said to have used mainly walnuts, and the mother rolled out the sheets by hand. In the method presented, walnuts can also be mixed with the almonds, and the nuts used vary by household and generation.

Azerbaijani Pakhlava Made with Layers of Leavened Dough

In Azerbaijan it is called pakhlava and is used for the spring festival of Nowruz, at tea, at weddings and as an engagement gift. Baku, Ganja, Guba and other places each have their own methods. In Ganja, some versions are made in copper pans over a wood fire and cut into fairly large diamonds, while in Guba the process begins with making layers called rishda.

In an example formula presented by the country’s tourism agency, flour is combined with yeast, eggs, butter and sour cream and left to rise. Walnuts, sugar, cardamom and other ingredients are placed between the layers, the top is brushed with egg yolk, and after baking the pastry is finished with warm honey. The yeast-raised dough and the honey give it a thickness and aroma distinct from those of other regions.

Old Layered Foods and Theories on Baklava’s Origin

When and where thin layered sheets, nuts, fat and syrup added after baking came together into a single method is not known. The 11th-century Turkic dictionary Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk records the name katma yuvğa, a folded, layered bread. It offers a clue for considering a lineage from Central Asian layered doughs, but no recipe complete with nuts and syrup survives. A gap in the record still remains between the 11th-century folded bread and the pastry containing nuts and syrup.

There is also a theory that the ancient Greek “kopte” is its ancestor. According to one interpretation, kopte, the proposed candidate, consisted of honey and nuts sandwiched between layers of pounded sesame. Although they share sweet layers, its structure differs from that of stacked films of dough. The medieval Arab lawzinaj is a confection in which ground almond paste is shaped into fingers, rolled in very thin crepes and soaked in syrup. Nuts, thin wrappers and syrup coexist here too, but it differs from the method of scattering nuts between many sheets.

Placenta from ancient Rome is another layered candidate for an ancestor. Section 76 of Cato’s On Agriculture describes alternating a dough called tracta, kneaded with grain, with sheep’s-milk cheese mixed with honey, wrapping it all in an outer crust, baking it and finally brushing it with honey. Reconstruction experiments have also confirmed the contrast between the grain-containing layers and the soft cheese. However, whether the method continued unbroken from these ancient foods to modern nut-filled baklava is not known.

Diversity Recorded in an Ottoman Cookbook

Mehmet Kâmil’s Melceü’t-Tabbâhîn, published in 1844, includes several kinds of baklava made with thin sheets and nuts. It is a printed cookbook that compiles recipes from older culinary manuscripts and from experienced cooks, and it shows that by the 19th century there was already no single fixed method. In the Ottoman period, versions filled with kavun—that is, melon—and with cheese were also made. Fillings other than nuts were already in use in Ottoman times.

The geographical indication for Gaziantep, which protects local techniques, also covers only the baklava made in Antep among the baklavas of many regions. Neither an ancient inventor nor a place of origin within the empire as a whole has yet been established.

Names Spread Across Regions and an Unsettled Etymology

It is called baklava in Turkish, baqlāwa in Arabic, baklavás in Greek and bāqlavā in Persian, and the name has taken root in each language. The Encyclopaedia Iranica treats the etymology as unsettled. It cites a proposal linking the ending to a Persian suffix for dish names, while stating that the origin of the first part is unknown. Explanations based on “leaf” or on the Arabic word for “herb” are considered unlikely, and the theory that the name derives from a Central Asian word meaning “to fold” has not been confirmed either. The names are similar from place to place, but neither the etymology nor the place of origin has been made clear.

Ottoman Court Ceremony and Celebratory Sweets in Various Regions

The Ottoman Empire had a ceremony called the baklava alayı, in which baklava made in the palace kitchens was carried to Janissary soldiers on the 15th day of Ramadan. The procession carrying large trays was also an occasion that displayed the relationship between the court and the army. Sweets held special meaning not only at the festival marking the end of Ramadan but also in the middle of the month of fasting.

In Gaziantep it is served at weddings, engagements, circumcision celebrations, condolence visits and other occasions. Just as it is linked with spring celebrations in Azerbaijan, the events and seasons at which it is eaten differ by region.

Glossary