Saragli is the baklava version that is nicely wrapped, allowing you to simply use your hands to eat it! That means that pleasure of eating it will be even more. That’s my view of course, I just think that when you don’t use any fork/knife/spoon to eat and you do it directly with your hands, you have direct feeling of the food before it reaches your mouth. That way the joy you get is even bigger as all your senses (hands/mouth) are there! In general Saragli is mainly made in Northern Greece, it’s a different version of baklava, made during all year long but mainly for Christmas!

the recipe

serves 12 | 2 hours

for the dessert

• 500gr. phyllo dough
• 350gr. butter 82% in fat (or more)
• 150gr. walnuts broken in medium pieces
• 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 4 vanilla powder tubes

for the sirup

• 700gr. sugar
• 400gr. water
• 1,5 tbsp. lemon juice
• 3 vanilla powder tubes

directions

• First make the sirup as in the end we want to add it lukewarm-cold in the hot dessert, right after we take it out of the oven.
• Add all sirup ingredients in a pot and warm up in medium temperature without covering the put. When the water starts boiling keep it there for another 7′-8′ and then remove from the stove. Let it aside to get a lukewarm temperature.
• Preheat your oven at 150 degrees C.
• Melt the butter with 2 vanillas in a small pot in very low temperature, don’t cook it only melt it! Butter up a 30x22cm. baking pan and let in aside.
• Mix in a bowl the broken walnuts together with the cinnamon and 2 vanillas.
• The wrapping process is as follows: In a clean surface (your table for instance) lay one phyllo and butter it’s surface very well with a kitchen brush, add a second phyllo on top of it and butter it up same way. Use a tea spoon to sprinkle the walnuts mixture here and there in the surface of the second phyllo. It has to go everywhere but not completely cover the phyllo, we don’t want to have too much walnut in there. Start wrapping the phyllos smoothy from their short side until you get a log. Using your 2 hands press slightly and very gently the log to become shorter and place it in the baking pan, along the short side of it. We move on the same way placing the logs the one next to the other in the pan until the phyllo dough is up. Make sure that you use a towel to cover the unused phyllo during the process to keep its moist, otherwise it will get dry and break into pieces without being able to wrap properly.
•  When all logs are in the pan we brush each one with the remaining butter (from the total 350gr. you will use approx. 280gr. for buttering the phyllos and 70gr. to brush the logs in the end before baking).
• Bake for 1 hour until your saragli gets a nice brown color.
• When you take the dessert out of the oven you let it stay for 1′ and then using a big soup spoon, you add the lukewarm sirup to cover all of it well.
• Let the dessert absorb the sirup and rest at least for 30′ before you cut it, you will see that in the end all sirup will not be visible anymore.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Tips!

• Don’t cover your saragli! Keep it in a dry and dark place without any foil on top of it. This way you will make sure that the phyllo will remain nice and crunchy until you eat all your baklava!