Phool khaja

Phool khaja known in Indian sweet shops is Boukaj Baklava. I love these and looking at all the ways to make baklava I wanted to try make these seen as filo pastry is easily available.

Ingredients

1/2 cup shelled pistachios

1/4 cup almonds

Melted ghee

I used 17 filo pastry sheets (235g)

Sugar syrup:

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Squeeze of lemon juice

2 tbsp honey

Method

Remove the shells from the pistachios and grind them along with the almonds to a coarse mixture. In a pan mix together the sugar, water, lemon juice and honey. Heat on medium heat and once the sugar dissolves let the mixture boil for 5 minutes then allow the sugar syrup to cool.

To assemble the baklava take one filo sheet and spread melted ghee all over one side of the sheet. Place another filo sheet on top and spread melted ghee on top. Repeat this process with the rest of the filo sheets. I used 17 sheets in total but you can use less.

Once all the filp sheets have been used. Cut them into squares . I did 3 inch squares. Taking one sqaure at a time fold the corners inwards towards the middle to form a parcel shape. Open this up again and fill the centre with the ground pistachio and almond mixture. I used a little over 1 tbsp of the mixture for each square. Fold the corners of the filo pastry squares into the middle and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake these in the oven on gas mark 4 until golden. These took me 50 mintues to bake to get to this golden colour. Once brown take them out of the oven and spoon the cooled down sugar syrup onto the individual baklava pieces while they are still hot. I used 2 tbsp of syrup for each parcel. Leave the baklava overnight or for 6-8 hours to soak up the sugar syrup.

You can use any nuts for the filling. Here I garnished my phool khaja with some paan mukhwas. Store these in an air tight container.

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