BAKLAVA, BOREK RECIPES

For a really long time, I and my blog partner couldn't add any recipes here. I was busy with my English courses and my cake decoration classes. I was totally falling in love with cake decoration stuff. I spend most of my time with them. If you want to see some of my cake images you can click here but they are in Turkish. Minik Kus is very busy with her research that she is doing for her PhD degree. I hope we will not do this again.

Finally, I am adding some Turkish food recipes now. Today is our traditional "Kurban Bayrami". It is a religious celebration. I made them for Bayram for our guests. Enjoy!

Adopted from Ceylan
Borek recipe:
Ingredients:
For dough :

• 2 eggs (one of the egg yolks is for topping)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1\3 cups olive oil plus 1 tablespoon for topping
  
• 2\3 whole milk
• 1 1\2 teaspoon baking powder
• flour (almost 4 cups)

For filling:

• 1 packet baby spinach (chopped small pieces)
  
• 1 big chopped onion
  
• 1 pinch salt and pepper
• 1 packet blue cheese (*my contribution)
  
• 2-3 tablespoon olive oil
  

Method:
Lightly grease a round 27 cm (10 inch) cake pan with olive oil
Preheat oven 350F
1. In a large pan, cook the onion with olive oil until it turns yellow. Add the spinach, cook until spinach dies down and add the salt and pepper. You can also use beef and potatoes for filling.
2. Next, in a large bowl, add all the ingredients but with only 1 cup flour. Start kneading. It should be very sticky, add flour one cup at a time and continue kneading until dough becomes soft and not sticky. Stop adding flour.
3. Dust the work surface with some flour. Make small balls from dough and roll each ball very thin 8 inch diameter. ( or little longer and narrower)
4. Pour 2 or 3 tablespoons filling and 1 tablespoon blue cheese one side of dough and make a tight roll. Make a ring and put it in the middle of the pan. And than start wrapping the roll from middle to out.
5. Brush the Borek with the egg yolk and olive oil, bake it until brown. Serve when it is almost hot.

Baklava Recipe: (updated)
Ingredients:
For filling:

• 12 filo dough sheets
  
• 3 cups walnuts very finely chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2\3 cup unsalted melted butter
  

For syrup

• 1 1\2 cups water
  
• 2\3 cup sugar (or more sugar if you have a sweet tooth)
  
• 1 lemon zest strip
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice

Method:
Lightly butter 9-13 inch pan
Preheat oven 325F
1. In a small saucepan, mix water, sugar, lemon zest and juice and boil them properly and let it cool completely.
2. In a separate bowl, add the nuts and cinnamon, mix them well.
3. Next, in a lightly buttered pan, line the first filo sheet and brush it with butter. Tuck the overhanging parts in...and do it same thing to second and third filo sheets. Next, sprinkle nuts with spoon on the dough. And then line 3 more filo sheets as above and sprinkle nuts top of them. 2 more times do it same thing until you finish your ingredients. Remember to brush each filo sheets with butter. Brush the top of filo sheet. Finally, cut only the top 3 filo sheets diagonally across and bake until golden brown. Approximately 40 minutes.
4. When it is baked cut it all the way to the bottom using the same lines and pour the syrup on the baklava immediately. I like to eat Baklava when it is a little warm but normally it is served when it is completly cool. You can serve with extra nuts on the top, ice cream and with my favorite "Kaymak". Enjoy!