Baklava Uncovered, Gulluoglu – Istanbul

Posted by Ozlem on Jul 28, 2011 in Cakes and Desserts, Uncategorized | 3 comments

This whole post deserves to be dedicated to our Baklava Masterclass with the baklava experts at Gulluoglu. We have been looking forward to our baklava class for months to reveal how the genuine article is made – and here it is!

Gulluoglu Baklava is a family owned store and they have been making “hand made” baklava for 6 generations – the daily production ranges from 2-5 tons, all hand made!
They use organic butter, pure cane sugar – no honey!-, and it is a result of their mastership for 150 years, very impressive.

Here is the baklava making master class

The dough is being pushed thru a special machine (similar for making pasta) to stretch. This is the only step that involves machinery.

Once the pastry is paper thin (2mm width), we start layering on a buttered tray.

The hand rolled pastry is so thin that you can see through my logo,

as well as the flags behind it!

Our baklava master layered 20 sheets of pastry ( and sprinkled melted butter on every 4 sheets) than generously spread finely crushed pistachios (or at some cases walnuts)on the 20th layer.

He cut the sheets first horizontally and poured melted butter over them – cutting helps the butter to penetrate every level. Then he cut vertically and splashed another dose of butter all around. The baklava is now ready to be baked in the oven at 165 C.

In the meantime, the syrup is prepared, consisting of pure cane sugar, lemon juice and water – no honey in it!

Once cooked, hot syrup is poured over the hot baklava, and then let it rested at the cool area.


And here is the real thing; wonderful, melt in the mouth delicious baklava. It is so light that you feel like eating the whole tray! I hope you get a chance to try the real baklava in Turkey:)