Other crazy things people are doing with baklava

The above descriptions should give you enough of a guide to choosing the right baklava for you. Of course, that isn’t the end of the line for baklava varieties, and it isn’t the end of the line for people’s creativity. I’m going to share with you a few things people do with baklava that might seem a little extravagant. I never experienced anything like this in Melbourne and assume it only happens in places with daily baklava consumption; baklava culture if you will. Definitely try at least one of these, or all of them, on your next stay in Turkey or wherever else you find them.

Dondurma with carrot slice baklava

This one is the most “dine-in” of all on this list. Take a lovely slice of your fluffy, carrot slice baklava and an equally large slice of Turkish dondurma or ice cream. Some places will put the dondurma in between the filo pastry layer and the nut base, creating one of the most lip-smacking ice cream sandwiches you’ve ever experienced. Dondurma is characteristically thicker and has been heralded online as the ice cream that doesn’t melt; it sort of just becomes gooey. I prefer to let the dondurma unfreeze and sit a while, giving each spoon a smooth coating of ice cream.

Cold baklava, Soğuk baklava

This is another variant that I’ve found is harder to come across the further away you are from a baklava capital. Cold baklava is another over the top variety that I initially thought you could only have in restaurants. It turns out however many places deliver this, along with an icebox, and you can even order it off the street on a hot summer’s day.

Cold baklava, is cold, because of the milk that is added to the baklava tray once it is cooked. After that, it is topped off with chocolate powder. The milk does make the baklava a little soggy, but if you can get over that, the taste is similar to ice-cream and milo.

Milk baklava

This is a similar rendition of the cold baklava, but one that often leaves off the chocolate powder. There are still a bunch of other varieties of the baklava and milk, but the soğuk baklava seems to be the most popular.

Chocolate baklava

It was only a matter of time until people started putting chocolate in with the nuts between layers of pastry. The result is a delicious spin on traditional baklava. You will be able to spot these from the shop window as the entire pastry has taken on a dark brown, chocolatey colour. The addition of the chocolate changes the texture a little bit, since the chocolate has melted all throughout once the baklava is cooked. If dark chocolate is being used you still get that chocolate flavour without it being much sweeter.

Purple baklava

This colourful baklava jumped out at me from a store window and I just had to buy a piece. I had never seen green pistachios on top of purple filo pastry layers. From what I can find online, it also seems like this is a relatively new invention here in Turkey as well.

The purple baklava gets its colour from a mixture of natural purple fruits and vegetables that are processed into a dye; like berries, beets and purple carrots. The original recipe was crafted to give diabetics a way to still enjoy their baklava. I remember mine being sweet, but differently sweet to the other baklava I tried. So this might be an option for those of you looking for something with a little less sugar.

Have you ever looked at a middle-eastern dessert and asked yourself, “is this baklava?”. “What about this one?”. The following section covers a few of the most common desserts that are technically not baklava but you might still enjoy trying and learning about.