Orange Pecan Baklava

An orange-pecan vegan baklava recipe. Quite understandably, this peculiar combination of words may be tantamount to sacrilege for you traditionalists. Classic Baklava is a cornerstone dessert in Greece, Turkey, and other parts of the Middle East – a tried, tested, and true classic. How could one even dream of changing it? But if you were to taste the mouth-watering, crispy goodness that is this orange pecan baklava, you might begin to reconsider!

What’s different in this baklava versus classic baklava?

For starters, I replaced butter with coconut oil (or some kind of vegan butter works as well!). The two are interchangeable, really. Coconut oil is as fatty and unctuous and (cough, cough) as indulgent as butter, and melts in pretty much the same way. The two are so similar that the ratio for replacement is as simple as one to one; for however much butter you have in a recipe, simply use that much coconut oil instead. Quick aside: refined coconut oil is better for baking.

Secondly, I used pecans instead of more traditional nuts like walnuts or pistachios. Pecans, to me, have this wonderful sweet, toasty flavor, and they pair really naturally with sweeter citruses like orange. So again, instead of using lemon juice, I simply used orange juice and orange zest in its place. The pecans and orange work wonders together to give this baklava a unique flavor profile.

And lastly, I substituted brown rice syrup for honey. Unlike honey, brown rice syrup is not cloyingly sweet, but it does have the same viscosity and serves about the same purpose. It’s a great vegan replacement for for honey, and it worked well in this vegan baklava recipe!

Describe taste (mouth-watering intensifies)

– Toasty, cinnamon-blanketed pecan crumbles lie between sheets of golden brown phyllo dough, crispy, flakey and melt-in-your-mouth.

– A spike of bitter orange zest and the juice tame the sweetness of the coconut sugar and brown rice syrup mixture, which itself has a unique malt-like flavor. And this light and not overtly sweet or sticky orange syrup, when drizzled over the top of the baklava right out of the oven, seeps deep into the phyllo and the filling, perfectly complimenting the cinnamon pecans, while not hampering or detracting from the phyllo’s signature crunch.

– The final finishing flourish: a side of vegan vanilla ice cream, over which one can drizzle additional syrup. It provides a pleasant temperature contrast and a creamy element that, along with the crunchy outside layer of baklava and the moist yet flavorful nutty filling, is actually quite hard to resist.

Recipe Specific Quirks – Baklava

The Syrup: Syrup for baklava does not need to be thick like molasses. This is not the same syrup as that lady-shaped bottle of high-fructose stuff people use for pancakes. In fact, you want the syrup to be quite thin and light, because then it more easily seeps into cuts in the phyllo, once fresh out of the oven. Essentially, for the syrup to be considered complete and ready to drizzle, all you need is for the coconut sugar to have dissolved completely in the water, and for the syrup to reduce just a little bit, so that is it slightly thicker than when you started.

Fitting the Phyllo Dough to the Baking Dish: Make sure that your phyllo dough sheets fit the pan in which you are going to bake them. I note in the recipe that you should trim the phyllo beforehand. But even having done this, my phyllo sheets were still a little too big. As a result, the phyllo kind of piled up around the edges. And yet, this was not much of a problem; if anything, it gave the person eating something to hold on to while eating the baklava diamond by hand.

Working with Phyllo, the challenges: Remember when working with phyllo dough that you need to keep the sheets you’re not using between two damp dish cloths. This is because phyllo dough is so thin that it has a tendency to dry out in no time when left uncovered, especially on warmer days. You don’t want cracked and intransigent sheets of phyllo, so take steps beforehand to prepare a space for two slightly damp cloths, between which you’ll store the phyllo you’re not immediately using. If you’re still intimidated, simply buy two boxes of phyllo, so that you have a backup sheets should you irreparably wreck too many on the first go.

Coconut Oil Use: Be generous with the coconut oil when you’re layering your phyllo, too. Cover the whole sheet by brushing the oil onto it. Yes, I know that coconut oil isn’t the healthiest of food items, but it’s not as if baklava is an everyday thing. This isn’t a time to count calories – you’re making a baklava for goodness sake! If it isn’t unctuous, indulgent, and a little bit bad for you, then what’s the point?

Baklava – to let sit or not to sit: Most baklava recipes recommend that you let the dessert sit in the syrup overnight in the fridge. Personally, a cold, sticky piece of phyllo pastry never appealed to me, so I say eat it fresh out of the oven. Do let the syrup sink into the baklava for about 10 – 15 minutes, but then eat it while it’s still warm and fresh.

Here’s why you ought to give this recipe a try

If you love interesting, flavorful twists on classic desserts that are vegan but no less delicious and satisfying than the original, then you have to make this. I would recommend serving it on special occasions. For example, I made this for my mom’s 65th birthday, and it was a hit.

Phyllo can be intimidating. But once you get the hang of working with it and counteracting its quirks (drying out, ripping and crumpling up), it’s so much fun and creates such beautiful food.

So fear not, give this vegan baklava recipe a shot. You won’t be sorry!

Side note: In my haste to eat this beautiful dessert, I didn’t take any decent photos of the baklava while it was whole and fresh out of the oven. This was an oversight on my part, and I failed to illustrate what a beautiful, dish full of diagonally sliced baklava diamonds looks like. There are, however, numerous references online – photos, videos, tutorials, which should give you a better idea of what this ought to look like once it comes out of the oven.