Vegan Latest: Meera Sodha’s recipe for vegan Christmas baklava

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Meera Sodha’s recipe for vegan Christmas baklava

From theguardian.com

Ready-made mincemeat, marzipan and filo sheets make this a relatively faff-free festive dessert

As much as I love cooking for people, I adore watching Poirot re-runs and playing rounds of Who Am I? on Christmas Day. This means getting well ahead of the cooking, and things such as this baklava are a bit of a no-brainer: it has all the fun and flavour of Christmas, but none of the faff. It’s made using ready-made mincemeat, marzipan and filo sheets, and so “making” it is actually more of an assembly job. And, just like me, it can then sit around quite happily for a week or so without any trouble.

Christmas baklava

This recipe can be doubled easily. You’ll need a food processor for the nuts, and a deep, 25cm x 25cm baking tray (you could use a bigger tray, but it just won’t fit the filo as snugly). Make sure the mincemeat and marzipan are suitable for vegans.

Prep 10 min
Cook 1 hr 20 min, plus cooling
Makes About 35 pieces

For the syrup
100g caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp brandy

For the baklava
125g shelled walnuts, finely ground
125g shelled pistachios, finely ground (set aside 20g to finish)
1¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp fine sea salt
Zest of 1 lemon
100g marzipan, grated
190g mincemeat
100g vegan unsalted butter, melted
1 x 270g pack filo pastry (ie, 7 sheets)

First make the syrup, which needs to be cool before it goes over the baklava so you don’t end up with a soggy bottom. Put the sugar, 100ml water and the lemon juice in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer on a low to medium heat, then simmer for about eight minutes, until the mix is starting to coat the back of a spoon. Add the brandy, simmer for another minute, then take off the heat and leave to cool.

Now for the filling. Put the ground nuts in a bowl, add the allspice, salt and zest, then mix. Add the mincemeat and marzipan, and mix again.

Heat the oven to 170C (150C fan)/325F/gas 3. Melt the butter in the microwave and take the filo out of the fridge. Lay the filo sheets in a stack, cut them in half vertically from top to bottom, then stack them up so you now have 14 smaller sheets of pastry. Brush a 25cm x 25cm oven tray with the butter and lay in one sheet of filo. Brush again, lay in another filo sheet and repeat until you’ve used up seven sheets, but don’t butter the top sheet. Tip the nut and mincemeat filling on to p and, using a wet spoon, press the filling down evenly and all the way to the edges of the pastry. Lay another sheet of filo on top, brush with butter, then repeat with the remaining six sheets of pastry. Press down well with your hands, cut diagonally from top left to bottom right at 4cm intervals, and again from top right to bottom left, then gently brush the top with any remaining butter (you may need to re-melt it).

Bake for an hour, until golden brown, then remove from the oven and spoon the syrup evenly over the top. Sprinkle over the reserved ground pistachios and leave to cool in the tray. To serve, slice again, then lever the baklava on to a large platter or smaller individual plates.