10 January 2012

Dina Baklawa Snack Pack (Sainsbury’s) [By @Cinabar]


Baklawa (also known as Baklava) is a Turkish delicacy consisting of filo pastry sweetened with syrup until it is sticky and often with added nuts. It covers a multitude of slightly different variations on that theme, and in fact this very snack pack had three Baklawa varieties within the box. I was more than a little surprised to find Baklawa in our small local Sainsbury’s, especially on the snack section (i.e. not the import isle) and took the opportunity to try something new. The image on the packaging shows them being eaten with a cup of coffee, so I brewed a mug for myself and opened the box.
I started with the one with the rounded top (right in the photo), and as I picked it out of the pack realised it was quite sticky to touch. I bit in and found that it was almost completely pastry, stuck together with a very sweet syrup. It was nice, but I could imagine it would be rather rich if eaten in any vast quantity.
The next one I tried was the middle one which looked like it had a pinched top. Although there was still a lot of pastry this one had a syrup and pistachio based filling. It was less flaky and not as sticky as the previous variety and was much easier to eat. The nut flavour broke it up a bit and made it a delight with coffee.
I accidentally saved the best to last as the final one (left in the photo) was a total treat. It had a substantial amount of filling and tasted strongly of walnuts and syrup. It reminded me of pecan pie, as the strongly flavoured nuts and syrup just worked so well together. I liked the fact that there was less pastry and more filling and that the nuts had such a good defined walnut taste, it really was superb.
I thoroughly enjoyed trying this Baklawa and have to say as per the serving suggestion on the packet, a cup of coffee works well with these. The bitterness contrasts the super sweet flavours so well and a sip of coffee after the sugar worked nicely. They are rich and different and very nice in small quantities, unless of course you stumble across a huge box of the walnut ones, in which case I think you might be surprised by just how many I can eat!!
By Cinabar

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm addicted to these atm!! I can't stop buying these £1.00 snack packs :)

cinabar said...

They have them by the tills of our Sainsburys - I succumbed to the impulse purchase! Nice - but I'm thinking naughty too ;-)