Family Recipes are like Complex Projects

Implementing them requires a certain fortitude and lightness on your feet.

Baklava. I watched for years. Tonight I made them.

Prep Work

Baklava. Light and sweet flaky pistachio filo goodness. They remind me of so many different things. I can’t even properly enumerate. The smells. The sounds of the crisp pasty as you gently run your knife against the edge. The crackle of the family secret sweet soak hitting the pan.

I’ve also been watching them be made since I was a kid. You see, you can’t really learn how to make baklava from just a recipe. This runs counter to everything I try to do with my technical projects. I want to just run a few commands and tada, it works. Baklava doesn’t work that way.

Making baklava requires speed, a delicate touch, and a lot of small critical decisions at many different points. I’ve never attempted to make them before.

There’s a “haha universe, you’re funny” part. Me and gluten aren’t friends. I mean, I love ’em to bits, but I’ve been told by folks with stethoscopes they’ve been throwing a riotous houseparty in my internal machinery and really it’s a pretty bad relationship which I should totally get out of.

So I’m not sure if it’s irony (I blame you 90s music), but I can’t rely on my tastebuds at the most critical parts.

I need to rely on some volunteer tasters. I need a team and feedback. Fortunately, it’s remarkably easy to find people more than willing to taste test and lend a hand. It’s amazing what you can find if you just ask.

Fundamental Ingredients

Baklava at its core is the following things:

• Flour (curse you gluten)
• Salt
• Water
• Filling (methods vary)
• Fats (methods vary)
• Sweetness (methods vary)
• Heat (methods vary)
• Time (methods vary)

There’s something elegant about simple desserts. But they’re tricky to execute. The details are where things always get tricky.

But this is where I find making sure you verify your fundamental assumptions and ingredients is important.

The fats are the easiest place to start. We’re looking for delicious flavor so we want to avoid burning at all costs. Burnt desserts don’t do well when it comes time to serve.

Clarified is butter is where my training data takes me. The milk solids don’t burn, the layers of filo puff well and differentiate. It’s easy to work with. The right tool for the right job.

I should add, family recipes vary just like families. Opinions about baklava can be polarizing. This is just how the little kid in me sees them. He was lucky. He could eat them. Well, he couldn’t really, but he did. Ignorance can be bliss. But harmful nevertheless.

The filling is where so many baklava change. Some are really complicated, some are brutally simple. The way we make them is the the later. But simplicity oddly enough does not remove the essential complexity.

We choose to use just pistachio. No spices. No cloves. No rosewater. Maybe it’s just me, but I find those just a little too loud. The star of the show should be the filo and the pistachio. But even without the extra ingredients. Ensuring the pistachio don’t overcook is critical.

They’re packed with oils, and hit them too hard or too fast or too long and that wonderful flavor will taste more savoury than sweet.

But sure. We can deal with it when we use the heat. But whoa there. The filo is razor thin. But we need it to puff. So we need it hot enough, but not too hot to rough up the filling or scorch the bottom. Family recipe calls for a temp with an error range about +/- 30 degrees F. This is different than the ones on my shelf. Normally it’s this for that minutes and tada. But this is different.

See the temperature of the day the moisture in the air or filo, the level of soak in the butter. The oven itself and how it operates. Does it click back on every time you open. When does it check temps and heat. How far away is the element. What color is the pan you’re using. How many baklava in the pan or over. Did you prep them ahead of time or did you immediately bake. What do you put in your sweet sauce. How long do you soak. How do you soak. Do you transfer. Hot or Cold applications. Resting times. Is this the first batch. Second. Third? Each one is different. The more you make the more it varies.

There’s so many different factors that can affect how things turn out when you need to have things ready. The best way to head those off is to experiment early and often.

Prep work. If you don’t have to do it all in one shot. Stage it out in increments.

Research and Development

I’ve been fortunate. I learned the component parts of a baklava deployment in stages as I grew up. How to prep the pistachios. How to clarify butter. How to make the sauce. How to roll them out. How to bake them. How to soak them.

But I never put them all together before this week. It’s like having to use all the different parts working as one to get the thing done. Without one the other can’t succeed.

When there’s not enough data, you consult the experts. But don’t be surprised when the answers are not all as easy to use as you hoped.

With baklava you can ask how long, we know it varies. 10–60 minutes who knows. You can ask how hot. Anywhere from 315–375 (but I’ve seen higher too) but it changes as you vent when you open, how you check, how tightly you pack. So it depends. When are they done. When they have to color of baklavas that are done. That sounds like the definition of PHP.

But here’s some weird magic I’ve experienced. I cant tell if it’s because my glasses get a bit hot by the oven when I pull them out of the oven. But I’ve watched them grow shades darker before my very eyes in the first 10–15 seconds coming out.

So even when you’re sure it’s on track, there can be surprises. The best way to avoid those is to keep checking. Enough to keep track, but not so much you let the heat out and flatten the filo into a dense mass.

Execution. Speed. Care. Confidence.

When it actually comes down to actually doing the thing. There’s a few fundamental realities. You can’t be slow. The filo dries out super fast and you can be left with shards everywhere, wasted filo, and a trip back to the only store that has a brand you know works. If you make your own filo. Double the angst. And you simply can not bring untested filo to a baklava bake. It will jam.

You have to have a careful hand. Enough pressure to coat the layers in a screen of fats to help them stay unique. But not too much to leave a mess and waste the likely limited resources. It’s not easy to just clarify butter when your filo is drying.

You need confidence. When laying the pistachio down. When rolling and forming. Too much force and it bursts. To little and you don’t get enough crinkling at the dough becomes a chunk again.

But that’s just the development work. The real challenges comes when you’re ready for production.

Once it’s in the oven. It’s on.

Your production environment might have seen better days.

The oven is where so many baklavas either flourish or perish. A quick search of recipes will show you there’s no end of variation.

The only key here is this. You have to commit your time to it. You have to keep a pulse on how it’s doing. Because things change fast. Flaky can turn dry. Browned to burnt. Even to off balance. I find sitting in front of the oven where it’s hot to be remarkably useful. Your method may vary.

When things need shaking up or a little breathing room given between the rows. Make sure it gets some attention. When you need to pull things out of the oven. Check under the pastry. Make sure the golden filo leaves at the top aren’t held up by charred parts below. Burnt baklava just takes burnt.

Be ready to adjust the timeline. Make sure you have enough time to prep and get things ready. The first batch maybe took an hour. You up the heat 5 degrees. The next 30+3 mins. Ok. No change in temp now. Then somehow it took 50 minutes. Then out of nowhere you get one that looks done at 30 but takes another 15+3+3+2+1:40 to fully finish properly. Things take the time they do. Forcing it tends to lead to less than delicious baklava.

But you can tell by the way the room starts to fill with taste testers that it’s ready. If the people who are going to benefit from all the little parts of goodness absolutely love it, that’s a job well done.

If you did everything right you’ve balanced the sweet with the filling. The filo is crisp and should taste just like it did when you were a kid.

But seriously. Three cheers for willpower. 180ish baklava made. None eaten by this NotSoMightyAgainstGluten Weasel. But they smell so good.

Missing Essential Details

I’ve glossed over the secret sweet soak. Because this is where we differ the most probably. So use what works for you. Because baklava are like people. The fact that they’re diverse makes them wonderful. Because when you ask if you like baklava. It’s easy to say yes.

Until eggs time, Weasel.out()