This is a delicious dish and works well eaten in small pieces. It makes a small baklava, perfect to cut in bite size chunks to serve at the end of the meal as petit four.
Mizithra is a delicious fresh cheese made of both goat and sheep milk and has a wonderful dairy flavour that I don’t find in ricotta. If you want to use ricotta, reduce the amount of mizithra by 75g and replace with crumbled soft goats cheese.
Because most filo sheets come in bigger dimensions than the dish, you can double or cut the filo and have a total of 6-7 layers.
Ingredients
- 275g mizithra
- 4-5 sheets of filo
- 30g almond flakes
- 50ml mild extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 150ml honey
Method
In a dry frying pan, toast the almond flakes over a medium heat, shaking the pan so as not to burn them.
Preheat the oven to 1800 C.
Brush an oven proof dish measuring 20 x 20 x 5cm with a little olive oil.
Cut the filo sheets to just over the size of the dish. Don’t worry if you need to turn over bits that overhang. Lay a piece of filo on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with the mizithra, a few almond flakes and a little cinnamon. Put another piece of filo on top and repeat with more mizithra, almond flakes and cinnamon. Continue like this until all the mizithra has been used up. Cover with two layers of filo and using a sharp knife cut the baklava in small diamond shapes.
Heat the oil in a small pan until almost smoking and pour carefully all over the filo. Bake in the oven for 60 minutes until the filo is golden.
Take the baklava out of the oven. Heat the honey in a saucepan until starting to bubble and pour carefully all over the baklava. Leave to cool and serve sprinkled with more almond flakes and a dusting of cinnamon.