Maple Baklava

Preheat oven to 200° C (fan forced)

Place pistachios, almonds and walnuts on a baking tray and roast for 10 to 15 minutes until nicely roasted. Remove from oven and cool. Once cool place roasted nuts in a blender, pulsing until the nuts are finely chopped. Transfer nuts to a bowl and add cinnamon, cardamom and orange zest. Set aside.

Reduce oven temperature to 180° Celsius. Melt butter in a saucepan or in the microwave. Working with 1 sheet of filo at a time and keeping the remaining filo covered with a lightly damp tea towel, brush each sheet of filo liberally with melted butter and lay on top of each other until you have used half of the filo sheets. With an 11 cm chef ring, cut out 8 rounds from the filo.

Taking four 10cm springform baking tins, place four filo rounds in the base of the tin, brush tops with butter and place the remaining four rounds on top. Divide the nut mixture into four and layer on top of the filo in each baking tin.

Using the remaining filo sheets, repeat the process of layering with melted butter and cutting 8 rounds from the filo. Top the nut mixture in each tin with one round of filo then brush the tops and add another round of filo. Brush a little remaining butter on the top of each and score the top section of filo with an “X” so that the baklava can soak in the syrup.

Place in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes until the tops of the baklava are golden.

10 minutes before the baklava has finished baking, combine sugar, water, Maple Syrup and juice in a saucepan over medium high heat. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil, then lover heat and simmer until a thick syrup forms. Remove from heat and set aside.

Remove baklava from oven and pour 1/4 of the syrup over each baklava round. Stand for 1-2 hours until baklava is cool. Cover and leave in a cool place until ready to serve. To serve, cut into pieces along score marks.The baklava will keep for up to a week.