Doppelbaklava

[11amas]

Hi All, I made a Baklava for my work xmas potluck; the recipe called for rose water to spray on the nuts which I didn't have. I figured a hop tea would be a neat sub...so I then took a bottle of my doppelbock, reduced it down to a syrup and used it in the syrup I poured on the baklava at the end. It turned out pretty good! Here is the modified recipe:


Ingredients
For the filling:
• 1 (5-inch piece) cinnamon stick, broken into 2 to 3 pieces or 2 teaspoons ground
• 15 to 20 whole allspice berries
• 14 oz mixed nuts (almonds, walnuts, peanuts)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon rose water cascade hops infused water
• 1 pound phyllo dough, thawed
• 8 ounces clarified unsalted butter, melted


For the syrup:
• 1, 12 oz bottle of Doppelbock (reduced to a syrup)
• 1 1/4 cups honey
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 (2-inch) piece fresh orange peel

[alan_marks]

Interesting recipe, how did the bittering work out with the beer syrup, beer...up if you weeell...
Alan

btw, spraying your nuts with rose water makes them smell purtie...

[11amas]

I want to try tea bagging some rose water one of these days, maybe it will entice the wife to get frisky...wait, what are we talking about now???

So the bittering was pretty low. I took .25oz of whole Cascade hops and brought about 1 cup of water to a simmer, cooled slowly for about 20 minutes, then took a SS strainer, lined with a muslin bag, put another .25oz of the hops on top of the sack, sitting in the strainer, and poured the still warm liquid over the hops. Then I took the liquid and poured over/through the dry hops again (kind of like hopbacking). I wanted to get max flavor and just a little bitterness to counter balance the sweetness of the baklava. Now one thing I did not plan for is the concentration of the bitterness from boiling down a bottle of the beer. When I tasted it on its own it was a bit strong but once I made the syrup it tasted really nice!

The dish has a unique flavor to it for sure, you don't really get a ton of hop character or malt but it is there in the background. Not bad IMO for someone who rarely cooks!

Plus I got to talk about my nuts so this was a win-win in my book.