Baklava is typically known as a Middle Eastern dessert. It is typically a phyllo pastry stuffed with pistachios and drizzled with honey. It is warm and nutty, the perfect holiday dessert! These are perfect for a holiday party or a family get together. The perfect thing is that it’s small and bite-sized so you can make a bunch and they’ll go like hotcakes. My mom’s recipe isn’t super traditional, a lot of elements have been updated to accommodate our family’s tastes. If you have family members that don’t like super sweet desserts this is perfect!
The nutmeg and cardamom in this dessert are so perfect to get a warm, Desi style dessert. A lot of these flavors mimic the flavor of a traditional barfi without the use of so much milk or milk powder. This dessert can be made vegan just make sure you use plant-based dough and butter. I have included a link to the cups I use, and those cups are vegan to my understanding. They are super accessible and very inexpensive. Shout out to the Athens brand for making this dessert so easy! If you can’t find the cups in-store, you can buy store-bought dough and use a cupcake or mini muffin tin with pie weights! You can bake the dough first to get a crisp on it and then stuff the mini muffins and bake again!
Mom’s Mini Baklava Pies
Ingredients
- 45 Fillo/Phyllo cups We exclusively use the Athens brand! They come in a packet of 15 each so we used 3 packets!
- 3 cups almonds
- 1 cup sugar
- 1.5 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 3/4 cup melted ghee Substitute with plant-based butter if you'd like to make this dessert vegan!
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake almonds for 14 minutes until it is a darker mahogany color and then cool completely.
- Grind the almonds into a coarse mixture. You're looking for something resembling graham cracker crust. Mix ingredients and spoon about .5-1 tbsp in each shell.
- Bake pies for 10 minutes at 350.
