Chocolate and hazelnut warbat
These crunchy, flaky filo pastries are filled with sweetened cheese and chocolate spread, soaked with syrup and topped with nuts. Warbat are the perfect gift or dessert for your Eid festive table after a whole month of fasting and restraint.
Ingredients
- 7 large sheets filo pastry
- 100²µ/3½´Ç³ú unsalted butter, melted
- 200g/7oz mascarpone
- 150²µ/5½´Ç³ú ricotta
- 50²µ/1¾´Ç³ú icing sugar
- 100²µ/3½´Ç³ú caster sugar
- 9–12 tsp chocolate hazelnut spread, such as Nutella
- handful toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp dried rose petals
- 2 tbsp chocolate curls
- ½ tsp flaky sea salt
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Lay a sheet of filo pastry on a dry and clean work surface and brush liberally with the butter using a pastry brush. Place each of the 7 sheets of filo pastry consecutively on top of one another, brushing butter between layers.
Cut the stacked sheets of buttered filo into even squares (or as close to even squares as possible) with a knife or pizza wheel. I make around 9-12 squares, but you can make a few more or less depending on the size of your filo sheets.
Fold each square of pastry diagonally so that it forms a triangle. Do not to press the layers down, leave it open in the middle so you can fill them after baking. Place the pastry triangles on the baking tray and brush the upper surface with more butter before baking for 15 minutes, or until they are a deep golden-brown colour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
Mix the mascarpone, ricotta and icing sugar in a small bowl, transfer into a piping bag and place in the fridge.
Put the caster sugar and 125ml/4fl oz of water in a pan and stir gently to combine. Try not to mix too much as it boils, so as to not form sugar crystals. Heat the mixture until it has reduced in volume by half and has formed a syrup like consistency (it will become stickier as it cools).
Place the jar of hazelnut chocolate spread into a bowl of hot water to slightly soften it and make it more spoonable.
To assemble the warbat, carefully open each folded triangle of pastry in the centre and spoon in a heaped tsp of chocolate spread, then pipe in some of the sweetened cheese mixture. It can get a little messy, but that really is part of the fun.
Drizzle over the cooled sugar syrup and scatter over the hazelnuts, rose petals, a few chocolate curls and sea salt, if you wish.