Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.
It started out innocuously enough. This looks like a friendly, harmless packet of dough, right? Try stretching it into 18 sheets of super-thin dough, and see how friendly it REALLY is....
The recipe had a link to a YouTube video of an old Macedonian woman, speedily rolling out the dough around a wooden dowel while chatting away to her friends. I tried rolling the dough around a wooden rolling pin...but it kept sticking to itself, no matter how much flour I added. So, I started by rolling it out, then draped it over my arm and pulled in all four directions. I don't think it got thin enough to read a newspaper through it, but it more or less worked okay. The directions had estimated 2 minutes per sheet...I was nowhere near that fast. More like 5!! I learned my lesson to not begin these things at night on the last possible day. Until next month's challenge, anyway....
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| The scene of the attempts at rolling. |
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| Half-baked. |
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| Fully baked, with syrup poured on top. |
I did not know the difference between "looks like way too much syrup but will soak in and is really the correct amount" and "looks like way too much syrup and IS, in fact, way too much syrup." Unfortunately, I ended up with the latter.
Overall...not a success!! I don't like baklava, and do not think my baklava tastes very good. And it's way too syrupy. So I will probably definitely throw it out today, since there is just enough sugar and "stuff" in it that I would most likely end up eating it anyway.
Oh, well, live (and bake) and learn...!
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