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Dessert

Walnut and Almond Baklava

A layered pastry dessert filled with walnuts, almonds, sesame seeds, and cinnamon, topped with a lemon‑orange honey syrup.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and sesame share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 90 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven350 °F
Timeabout 45 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • SYRUP

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Toast the almonds and sesame seeds for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

  2. Combine the toasted almonds and sesame seeds with the walnuts, cinnamon, and sugar.

  3. Melt the butter over low heat.

  4. Lightly grease a large baking pan that is at least 1/2 inch deep.

Layer and roll

  1. On your work area, take the pastry sheets one by one and, using a pastry brush, spread each with melted butter, layering them to make seven layers.

  2. Brush the top layer with butter.

  3. Sprinkle the nut mixture from the long side of the rectangle to the center, leaving the other half clear.

  4. Roll the pastry from the nut-sprinkled side, jelly-roll fashion, to make a complete roll with the nuts in the center and sheets of pastry around them.

  5. Repeat the layering, brushing, sprinkling, and rolling steps until all sheets and nut mixture are used.

  6. Brush each roll with butter.

Bake and make the syrup

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

  3. Bring the sugar, water, and peel to a boil.

  4. Simmer for 45 minutes or until the syrup is honey-colored.

  5. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and honey.

  6. When the baklava is baked, remove from the oven and let cool slightly.

  7. Cut the baklava into 2-inch diagonal pieces.

  8. Return the pieces to the oven to heat thoroughly.

  9. Remove from the oven again and cover with warm (not hot) syrup, using all the syrup.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Walnut + sesametop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Walnut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fillo pastry sheets
Form thin, crisp layers that bake into a flaky shell around the filling.
Sweet butter
Coats each sheet so the layers separate and crisp and brown in the oven.
Walnuts
Provide the main nut filling, adding richness and a toasty flavor when baked.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and a mild, sweet nutty flavor to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup, which soaks into the pastry and keeps it moist.
Honey
Adds sweetness and a floral aroma to the syrup and helps keep it from crystallizing.

The step that matters

Cover with warm, not hot, syrup. Warm syrup soaks into the crisp pastry gently, while hot syrup on hot pastry makes it steam and turn soggy. Cooled, thick syrup coats rather than soaks in.

Flavor stand-ins for the sesame

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, walnut, almond, cinnamon, sugar, lemon, orange):

  1. Pistachiobetter flavor fit
  2. Pecansbetter flavor fit
  3. Flaxseedbetter flavor fit
  4. Sesamethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, walnut, almond, cinnamon, sugar, lemon, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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