When people see the above picture they usually ask questions like: 'What is this?', 'Is it spaghetti?', 'Is it some kind of fabric?', 'Is it Angel hair?'.
No, it is Kantaifi! This sweet pastry is widely known throughout Greece and the Middle East and is usually accompanied with ice cream and/or 'Greek' coffee.
In this post I show you how to make Kantaifi using a 'ready-made' dough. It is possible to make the dough yourself by rolling it out again and again until you end up with a structure like in the picture above but I guarantee you, it is a real Titan work! Don't bother with it and buy the fresh 'ready-made' dough from your local bakery.
Ingredients:
For the pastry:
- 500 gr. chopped walnuts.
- 100 gr. chopped pistachios.
- 1 kg. Kantaifi dough.
- 1/2 teaspoon chopped cloves.
- 2 teaspoons grinded cinnamon (powder).
- 250 gr. butter.
For the syrup:
- 2 kg. of sugar.
- juice of 1 lemon.
- 1L of water.
Preparation:
For the pastry:
- (1) Mix the chopped walnuts with the cinnamon and the cloves.
- (2) Melt the butter in a baking mold (with a height of at least 3 cm).
- (3) Pre-warm the oven to 180° Celsius.
- (4) Butter the baking molds.
- (5) Untangle the Kantaifi dough in about 30 equal parts (of about 2cm x 20 cm).
- (6) Put on one end (of such part) a handful of the chopped walnuts.
- (7) Carefully roll the part (so that the walnut mixture is totally covered by the Kantaifi threads).
- (8) Repeat steps (6) & (7) for all the other parts.
- (9) Put all the rolls, WITH THEIR SEAM FACING DOWN, close to each other, inside the baking mold.
- (10) Pour some melted butter over the rolls.
- (11) Bake the mold about 45' until auburn (golden-brown).
- (12) Let the rolls cool down.
For the syrup:
- Put the sugar in the water.
- Boil the mixture for about 5 minutes.
- Add the lemon juice to the mixture.
- Boil 2 more minutes.
Finally:
- Pour the hot syrup over the pastry.
- Let the syrup absorb for AT LEAST 12 HOURS!
- For decoration, spread the chopped pistachios over the rolls.
Enjoy!
This dessert is very rich in calories so don't overdo it.
For some funny reason eating too much this, anyway, causes me to get a headache. I never knew why.