Baklava
Not Cypriot, but we eat a lot of it
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Kattimeri is a delicious, traditional Cypriot dessert with countless fans — three thin sheets scattered with crushed almonds and cinnamon, rolled tight, twisted, and coiled into a spiral before baking.
We would love to thank Maria Charalambous (@mariachal) for sharing her mother’s recipe with us.
Before you start
Equipment
- Rolling pin
- Baking tray
- Small pan for the syrup
What you need
Ingredients
Pastry
- 1kg plain baking flour
- 1 glass sunflower oil
- 1 tsp baking powder
Filling
- 200g almonds
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp caster sugar
Syrup
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups caster sugar
- Juice of half a lemon
- 2 tsp rose water
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2–3 cloves
Method
-
Crush the almonds
Break the almonds down — not too coarse, not to a paste — and mix them with the caster sugar and cinnamon.
-
Roll three sheets
Using a rolling pin, flatten your dough into three thin sheets. Brush each with oil and sprinkle over the almond, sugar and cinnamon mixture.
-
Roll and coil
Roll each sheet up loosely and twist it, then place it in a baking tray, forming a spiral like a snail shell. Repeat with the other pieces.
-
Bake
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and bake the kattimeri for about one hour.
-
Make the syrup
Boil the water and sugar with the lemon juice, cinnamon stick and cloves, then add the rose water at the end. Let it cool completely.
-
Soak
When the kattimeri is baked, remove it from the oven and pour the cold syrup over the top. Let it absorb all of it.
At the table
Serving suggestion
Serve at room temperature, in wedges cut from the coil.
Keep cooking
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