Baklava Cake! A sticky sweet baklava sandwiched between two delicious honey walnut cake layers covered with a honey cinnamon buttercream.
I am so excited to bring this Baklava Cake to you today. This recipe was harder to nail down than most, but it honestly turned out better than I expected in the end. The cake layers failed on me numerous times, and the only reason I kept going is because they tasted SO good. Like, amazing. Like, you’ll want to bake up just the layers and have them around for snacking or with your coffee/tea or for breakfast (no judgment).
Before we get into the deliciousness of the cake layers themselves, let’s talk about what Baklava even is. Spoiler alert: it’s delicious and you should definitely try it.
What is Baklava?
Baklava is a sticky sweet pastry made with dozens of layers of buttery Filo dough, chopped nuts, and honey syrup. Recipes for this vary greatly depending on where you’re from. It can be made with pistachios, walnuts, or almonds, and can include cardamom or cinnamon or rose water.
I kept it simple with honey, cinnamon, and walnuts, because that’s how I like it, but you could make any version you prefer.
How do you make Baklava?
Baklava is actually fairly easy to make, it’s just a bit tedious and time consuming. It took me about 30mins just to assemble, using 35 sheets of filo.
To make baklava, you start off by greasing your pan and then begin layering sheets of filo that you brush with melted butter. Start with 10 buttered sheets, and then spread the walnut filling. Next is 5 buttered sheets and filling, etc. etc. for as many rounds as you like, and top it off with 10 buttered sheets of filo.
Once you’re all layered up, you cut the baklava (before baking) into diamonds (I did squares) so that the syrup can penetrate through once it’s baked.
Bake the baklava (mine took 1h 15mins) then immediately pour the honey syrup over it. Cool completely, and let sit for at least 6 hours to a couple of days for the pastry to soften.
What kind of pan should I use for Baklava?
Normally, baklava is made in a 9×13 pan, but since I was making a cake I wanted a round pan. I needed to be able to get the baklava out of the pan in one piece, so I used a 6″ springform pan. Being springform though, some of the butter and honey syrup leaked out.
Ideally, I’d recommend one of those pans with the removable bottom that you push up. There might still be some leakage, but probably not as much. You could maybe get away with a regular cake pan and attempt to turn the baklava out of it, but I haven’t tried this myself. If you go this route you may want to line the cake pan with foil and have it overhang so you can pull the whole thing out.
Because I was using a round pan, I used a cake ring as a guide, placed it on top of the stack of filo, and cut around it with a sharp knife. I was hoping I could just press the cake ring through the filo to cut it, but that wasn’t going to happen, so a regular cake pan would work as a guide too, or even a 6″ cake board.
Tips on working with Filo Dough
Filo is extremely delicate, dries quickly, and tears easily. Though torn sheets are still totally useable, here are some things to keep in mind when working with it:
- Thaw in refrigerator. Thaw frozen pastry overnight in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before using.
- Keep it covered. Filo dries out and becomes brittle very fast so always keep the pastry covered with a damp (not wet) tea towel or similar.
- Handle with care. Filo is delicate and tears easily. Be gentle with it.
Honey Walnut Cake Layers
I didn’t want to use just plain vanilla cake layers here, because I felt like that would have been a cop-out. As much as possible, I wanted to emulate those delicious baklava flavours in the cake layers — something I thought would be a simple process.
I used my Almond Cake as a base for this, because it’s one of my faves and the layers baked up so beautifully. I tried a simple swap of walnut “flour” (I pulsed walnuts in a food processor to make this) instead of almond flour, and swapped some of the honey for sugar. The layers baked up okay, but the tops were kinda funky and they sank just a bit. It wasn’t up to my standards, at any rate (appearance wise).
I assumed it was the honey in my recipe, but numerous attempts later it turned out it was the walnuts. My cake layers just kept caving in while still in the oven, some worse than others, and the only determining factor seemed to be the amount of walnut flour I put in there.
I assumed walnut flour would be a straight swap for almond flour, but that’s clearly not the case (though pistachio flour worked just fine). I guess maybe because walnuts have more oil in them or something? I still don’t understand the exact science of why it went wrong, but just know that I tried a bunch of times to get it right.
When you’re making this recipe, I recommend weighing your walnut flour if possible. With the amount I’ve indicated in the recipe, it won’t be the end of the world if you use a bit too much, but your layers might sink in a bit. You can easily trim them off to level though.
With all the trouble with the cake layers and trouble with butter/syrup leaking out from the baklava, you’d think it would be smooth sailing from there on out. Not so. Decorating came with its own bundle of challenges.
I thought it would be a great idea to try and emulate the layers of filo with the frosting technique. It seemed simple in my mind. I had seen a video of it ages ago. I can’t remember where or I’d link it, but it was these perfectly smooth (and even) buttercream layers.
So first of all, I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough frosting. I always stress out about not having enough. It’s either just barely enough or I’ve made so much I could frost a whole ‘nother cake. Ridiculous.
Anyhow, I fitted my piping bag with a medium sized petal tip (I used #125, but others would work too) and got to work. It’s honestly much harder than it may look to get perfectly even and straight lines. Especially if your frosting is coming out a bit jagged (which mine was). Whatever. Filo layers aren’t perfect either, right?
Because I was worried about having enough frosting, I didn’t totally pipe the lines all the way around once I got past the top couple layers. That would be the “back” of the cake, I figured, and I’d adjust the frosting recipe as needed. Well I actually ended up having more frosting than I needed, and could have done continuous pretty(ish) lines instead of trying to patch them with the extra frosting after.
I don’t really have any tips for you in terms of making the lines smoother. It just takes practice to nail down the piping pressure + turntable turning speed (and clearly I need more of that).
I put the cake in the fridge to set the frosting, and somehow managed to smush the entire back of it. Thank god I put it in back side first!! The back already looked like crap from my patch job, but now it had a nice dent in it too.
Unfortunately, when I was cutting the cake for pics, I didn’t really think about where I was cutting it, and ended up having the crappy patched area positioned right in the front of the cut cake pics. I tried to hide it as best I could (aka crop as much as I could), but if you look closely on the left side of the cake here you can see the mess.
And to add one final insult to injury, the plate that I ended up using had a huge crack in it. Like practically split down the middle. I noticed this mid-way through pic taking.
Instead of rotating the slice of cake — which would have involved cleaning the cake plate and replating it, I opted to cover the crack with a giant piece of flaked filo. You can see it right next to the fork. LOL.
Laziness prevails in the Liv for Cake kitchen. With some things anyhow. The perseverance of nailing this cake recipe was well worth it. It is honestly one of the best tasting cakes I’ve ever had.
The honey walnut cake layers are a new favourite. I can hear Ryan rolling his eyes as I type this. He thinks I’m fickle and that everything is a “new favourite”, but I swear, this one really is!!
And you know what? I don’t even like honey. Not on its own, and not really in/with anything else. And this cake is honey heavy. But omg, it just goes so well with the walnuts and the cake and everything. I hope you love it as much as I do!
Looking for more Nutty desserts?
- Pear & Walnut Cake
- Milk Chocolate Almond Cake
- Pistachio Cake
- Walnut Cake
- Nutella Banana Cake
- Almond Amaretto Cake
Tips for making this Baklava Cake
- To make an 8″ cake, you can 1.5x the recipe (change the Servings to 18 to get the amounts).
- If you’d rather skip making the baklava layer but want three 6″ honey walnut cake layers, 1.5x the cake recipe.
- See tips above for working with filo dough.
- Don’t like honey? Neither do I, but I love this cake! If you want to tone down the honey flavour throughout, you can use a simple syrup on the baklava instead, and leave the honey out of the buttercream.
- If you don’t like walnuts, you can use pistachios or almonds instead.
- Be sure to check my Swiss Meringue Buttercream post for tips and troubleshooting.
- To help ensure your cake layers bake up nice and flat, check out my Flat Top Cakes post!
Baklava Cake
Ingredients
Honey Syrup (make 2 days in advance, at same time as Baklava):
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 6 Tbsp water
Baklava (make 2 days in advance):
- 8 oz filo dough (half a standard package)
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter melted
- 1 cup chopped walnuts 227g
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Honey Walnut Cake:
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup walnut flour ~ 30g fine ground walnuts
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2/3 cup milk room temperature
Honey Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
- 5 large egg whites
- 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter room temperature
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Assembly:
- chopped walnuts
- baked filo chips optional
Instructions
Honey Syrup (make 2 days in advance, at same time as Baklava):
- Place sugar, honey, lemon juice, and water into a small pot. Bring to a boil and simmer 3-4 mins. Remove from heat and cool completely.
- Reserve 1/4 cup of syrup to use on cake layers if desired.
Baklava (make 2 days in advance):
- Preheat oven to 325F and grease the sides and bottom of a 6" pan with removable bottom.
- Pulse walnuts in a food processor a few times until medium to finely chopped. Transfer to a small bowl and combine with the cinnamon.
- Roll filo dough out onto a clean surface. Using a 6" cake pan or cake ring as a guide, cut out a circle shape through all the layers. Cover filo completely with a damp towel and keep it covered while you work.
- Place one circle of filo dough in the bottom of your pan, brush with meted butter. Repeat until you've done 10 layers of dough. Brush top layer with butter and spread 1/4 cup of walnut mixture over top.
- Continue layering filo dough with brushing each layer with butter in between for a total of 5 layers this time. Brush top layer with butter and spread 1/4 cup of walnut mixture over top.
- Repeat two more times with 5 layers of filo each and finally with another 10 layers. The breakdown is like this:10 layers buttered filo1/4 cup walnut mixture5 layers buttered filo
1/4 cup walnut mixture
5 layers buttered filo1/4 cup walnut mixture5 layers buttered filo1/4 cup walnut mixture10 layers buttered filo (I did not butter the very top, but you can) - Cut the baklava into into about 1 1/2" wide strips, then cut across to form squares. Try not to cut all the way through the very bottom layer.
- Bake for 1h 15mins or until top layer is golden brown. Remove from over and immediately spoon syrup over the baklava. Let sit uncovered until completely cool, then cover with a tea towel. Leave at room temperature for 2 days.
Honey Walnut Cake:
- Note: If making your own walnut flour, pulse the walnuts a few times, measure out 1/4 cup, then pulse again mixed with the flour. Otherwise it will turn to walnut butter.
- Preheat oven to 325F. Grease and flour two 6" cake rounds and line with parchment.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, walnut flour, baking powder,and salt until well combined. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar on med-high until pale and fluffy (approx 3mins). Reduce speed and add eggs one at a time fully incorporating after each addition. Add honey and vanilla and blend well.
- Alternate adding flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour (3 additions of flour and 2 of milk). Fully incorporating after each addition.
- Bake for about 40-45 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean.
- Place cakes on wire rack to cool for 10mins then turn out onto wire rack. Allow cakes to cool completely.
Honey Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
- Place egg whites and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk until combined.*
- Place bowl over a pot with about 1" of simmering water. Whisk constantly until the mixture is hot and no longer grainy to the touch (about 3mins). Or registers 160F on a candy thermometer.
- Place bowl on your stand mixer and whisk on med-high until the meringue is stiff and cooled (the bowl is no longer warm to the touch (approx. 5-10mins)).
- Switch to paddle attachment. Slowly add cubed butter and mix until smooth.** Add honey and cinnamon and mix until incorporated.
Assembly:
- (optional) Trim tops of each cake layer just slightly or poke holes into them with a bamboo skewer. Drizzle each layer with about 2 Tbsp of the reserved honey syrup.
- Frost each layer of cake with approximately 2/3 cup of buttercream, spread evenly.
- Place one layer of cake on a cake stand or serving plate. Gently remove baklava from the pan and place on top of the frosted cake layer. Place remaining layer of cake on top of the baklava, frosting side down. Press gently.
- Frost and smooth the outside with a thin crumb coat. Chill for 20mins.
- Spread about 2/3 cup of frosting on the top of the cake. Smooth the top then use a small offset spatula to do a swirl.
- Using a piping bag fitted with a medium petal tip (I used #125), pipe rows of buttercream on the sides of the cake. Starting from the top and working your way down, narrow side of the tip pointing up. I started a bit higher than intended, but it gave the top a nice lip that I could fill with chopped walnuts.
- Sprinkle chopped walnuts and baked filo chips along the top of the cake if desired.
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Notes
** The buttercream may look like it's curdled at some point. Keep mixing until it is completely smooth. If it looks soupy, place it in the fridge for 20mins and rewhip. Baklava recipe adapted from Natasha's Kitchen.
Marilyn O'Neil says
I would like to try this and I was wondering if I could use pecans instead of walnuts. The second thing I was thinking of trying was adding Maple flavouring to the icing. Thoughts or advice???
Olivia says
Hi Marilyn! You can totally use pecans instead! For the frosting, you can try to add in some maple syrup to it, but be careful not to add too much as it’s quite liquid. If you wan a stronger flavour you can use maple extract. You could also pour maple syrup over the baklava instead of making a honey syrup. Yum!!
Krista says
Sorry! Me again. I’m going to make this for my daughter’s birthday, and I’m trying to plan. 🙂 I wanted to make the honey walnut cake into cupcakes for the kids and then the whole cake for the adults. Have you made the cake into cupcakes? Would you do a full recipe for a dozen of them? Is the buttercream icing suitable for cupcakes as well? How long would you bake them for?
Olivia says
Hi Krista! You can make this into cupcakes no problem and the frosting will work well for them too. I would start checking them at 15mins or so. I think a full recipe should be enough for a dozen 🙂
Krista says
Thank you so much! I appreciate your help 🙂
Krista says
Are you able to make the entire cake the day before? Or will it all get mushy from the baklava ? I plan on making this for my daughter’s birthday and will have enough other things to make the day of! 🙂 Thanks!
Olivia says
Hi Krista! Day before should be totally fine. I would store it in the fridge overnight and take out 2-3 hours before serving.
Beekle says
Desperately trying to work out how I’m going to get the baklava layer out without loosing filo pastry everywhere 😂 any tips? but so far so good!
Olivia says
Hi there! Did you use a springform pan? How did it go??
Nineveh says
This was DELICIOUS! Great flavor combos and not too sweet. I made this for Father’s Day and everyone loved it! Thank you for this wonderful recipe. You are so talented. I posted a picture on pinterest. https://pin.it/nm3ftflrsum67j
Olivia says
Hi Nineveh! Your cake is gorgeous!! Thanks so much for adding the pic, I love to see that. So glad everyone loved it 🙂
Jj says
Is it hard to cut into the cake with the baklava layer? Or does the filo get soft enough that there can be clean cuts? Was thinking about doing this cake for a charity cake auction, so don’t want the winning bidders to encounter difficulty cutting it.
Olivia says
Hi Jj! The Filo does get soft enough. I had no problems cutting through and getting a clean cut (see pics) with a sharp knife.
GInger says
My pastries are failing since I moved. Out of practice? elevation? the new smaller oven?
My baklava became chewy flaky crackers. I was sure I did the dough right. Maybe it was the amount and quality of the butter. The molasses filling (but that filling is part of the original recipe).
Olivia says
Hi Ginger! Strange, it could be any of those things for sure. I’m not an expert in pastries though.
Hannah says
I have been wanting to make your baklava cake ever since you posted about it. I love all things cake and baklava is a house fav around here! I decided to stop waiting for a reason and put it together this week and it was SO GOOD. I have never made Swiss meringue buttercream and have always tried to avoid it. I’m so glad I finally caved and made it! It was smooth sailing and the silkiness and lightness of it was so so perfect with the baklava and cake, I can’t imagine it any other way! These flavors are perfect, thank you for the genius recipe and for sharing 🙏🏼
Olivia says
Hi Hannah! Thanks so much for your sweet comment. I’m so happy you loved this cake as much as I do and yay for making a SMBC for the first time!!
Cristina says
I was looking for a very special cake for my husband’s 40th birthday. He loves Baklava so I Google’d “Baklava Cake” and this recipe came up. I have never made anything from this site before. I made the whole cake, including the baklava layer, in a single day without any alterations to the recipe with the exception of increasing it to 1.5x for my 8inch pans (as suggested in the recipe notes). The cake was INCREDIBLE. My husband loved it. My kids loved it. My extended family loved it. The 8 inch cake pans made a lot of cake so I took some of the leftovers to work and my co-workers all agreed that this may be one of the best cakes ever! One asked where I had ordered it from which, is a great complement for an amateur baker like myself. As a side note, we order fancy expensive cakes for birthdays at work and this was much better than any cake we have purchased. The only thing that went wrong for me was that the cake stuck to the pan I turned it over but that was likely because I didn’t grease the pans well enough. Next time I will use parchment paper. I was able to hide this with icing so it wasn’t a big deal. The walnut layers are incredible on their own and I will definitely make them again. I know it is a long review but I often spend hours on the web looking for recipes and shy away from those without reviews so I hope this will be helpful to others.
Olivia says
Hi Cristina! I am so grateful for your comment, thank you so much! You totally made my day. I am seriously impressed that you made this all in one day — I would be exhausted! Glad it worked well as an 8″ and thank you for all your tips. I love the walnut layers on their own too, so delicious just with some tea or something. Definitely use parchment on the bottom of the pans, that should help. I hope you try more of my recipes 🙂
Patricia says
Baklava is my daughter’s favorite dessert. So, of course I HAD to make this cake for her birthday. The cake is so delicious and moist, the baklava layer is perfection, and the honey cinnamon SMBC is my new all time favorite! The cake was a big hit with everyone, even my 3 year-old grandson who insists he likes only ‘ban-ill-a cake’ 😀 Thank you, Olivia, for yet another amazing recipe and for your generosity in sharing your many talents.
Olivia says
Hi Patricia! So nice to hear from you as always. I’m so excited that you made this cake!! I would LOVE to see a picture of it if you have one you can email me 😀
Sarah Ahmadia says
This is brilliant and I love you. My husband was laughing at how excited I was to see this recipe. Your blog is fantastic and I always know I can trust your recipes. Thank you!
Olivia says
Thank you so much Sarah! I hope you try this one 🙂
Wanda says
I am not one to really enjoy reading blogs or stories prior to recipes but yours was cracking me up!! It’s so natural and flowing like I was sitting right next to my friend telling me of the saga of making this new cake! Hilarious…you should write a book, it would be a hit!!
Now as for the Baklava Cake? Baklava itself is my favorite dessert so I might have to dig my heels in and try and make this cake. My mouth is watering looking at the pics, chips or no chips in the dishes….it looks devine. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Olivia says
Hi Wanda! This is the best comment ever, thank you! That’s the feeling I try to convey with my writing, so I’m so glad it came across. I hope you try this cake!! It’s really delicious, especially for a fellow baklava lover 🙂
Olivia says
Oh my gosh! This is a fantastic idea! Did you try using almond baklava with your amaretto cake recipe while you futzed with this recipe? I am going to for my aunt (Who adores your amaretto cake above all others). First step is going to the farmers market for some top tier honey!
Thank you for your creativity and time! We all benefit and are forever grateful.
Olivia says
Hi Olivia! You are so sweet, thank you! I didn’t try the almond version but that would work perfectly fine (and be equally delicious). Let me know if you give it a go 🙂
stefani says
OMG, I am “sweet crazy” but your cake is the new level of “CRAZY”.
Love it.
The cake is pure, eating ART.
Olivia says
Hi Stefani! Thanks so much!!
Donna B Oliphint says
This cake looks amazing! I have one springform pan that leaks, too. Now I wrap the whole outside of the pan (bottom and sides) tightly with a square of foil before filling, and it keeps leakage to a minimum with no mess in the oven. You mentioned in the directions to remove 1/4 cup of walnuts after pulsing a few times, then pulsing with flour to keep from making walnut butter. Do you add the 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts back in, or are those used on top of the finished cake? So glad to find someone else who always worries about having enough icing. I don’t know how anyone gets one recipe of icing to frost and decorate a whole cake, unless they use only a thin amount between the layers. (That’s considered a sin in the South!) I usually make 2- 3 recipes of the icing, depending on decorations planned. Can’t believe you were able to do those beautiful ruffles with only one recipe! Great job!!!
Olivia says
Hi Donna! Thanks so much for your tips. That 1/4 cup of walnuts is what you use for the cake. You’ll likely pulse more than you need (unless you go by weight) so that’s why I specified to measure out 1/4 cup of the rough pulsed walnuts and then to pulse that amount with the flour. Like, remove anything over 1/4 cup from your food processor and add the flour in. If that makes sense. Maybe I should clarify the instructions!
Me says
Oh, my goodness! Baklava is my favorite dessert, so the cake version is sending me into a tizzy! This is definitely a recipe I’m going to attempt. Thank you for posting this!
Olivia says
Hi there! Baklava is SO good, right?? I can’t wait to hear how you like this!
Jacquie says
Olivia!!! You have really outdone yourself. This cake looks amazing… I love love love baklava. We were at a Greek wedding last weekend and baklava was one of the dessert selections. Definitely going to earmark this cake to make in the very near future. Well done!!!!
Olivia says
Hi Jacquie! Thank you!! I can’t wait to hear how you like this one!
Foodiewife says
You are far too critical of yourself. I would have never noticed any kind of imperfections. The frosting/piping job is beautiful. I’ve never made Baklava and I’ve never worked with filo. It makes me nervous. This is a brilliant cake and I think it’s absolutely stunning. I love honey and I’m sure I’d love this.
Olivia says
Thanks so much, you are too kind! I hope you try it — you can always skip the baklava itself and have a delicious honey walnut cake 🙂
Raschell | MissHomemade.com says
Wow. This is so clever and the cake looks amazing. What a talent you have – this I do not claim to have. Thank you so much for posting this…
Olivia says
Thanks so much Raschell! I hope you try this one 🙂