World Dishes: Middle Eastern/Mediterranean Cuisine - Part 1: Baklava

World Dishes: A Felt Food Series to Explore Diversity

Growing up as a military child and a biracial person, diversity was always much more than a topic to me, it really was a part of my world view. I have always been surrounded by individuals who were different cultures than myself, even in my own family. One of my favorite ways to learn about other cultures, has been through food. Call me a foodie, but I find cuisine one of the most fun and true ways you can connect with individuals outside of your culture, to celebrate the beauty in our differences, but more importantly, to see some of the commonalities across humanity.

When I had my daughter and she grew an affinity to her play kitchen, creating felt foods for her to enjoy became one of my favorite things to do. Over the next year, I will take her and all of you along for a journey exploring four different cultures, that have fun and amazing foods. The desire behind this series is to not only showcase easy-felt foods that can be replicated, over and over but more importantly to inspire littles to learn about the culture and the world around them through food and play. As we know, food often transcends culture and leads to points of commonality. It also has inspired so many to learn about others and to celebrate the beautiful diversity of the world. My family is incredibly multicultural. I have hoped to embark on this project for some time to teach my daughter about the beautiful cultural complexity of her own family.

The Felt Store offers such a wide range of craft felt and I am so excited to share these tutorials with you all and connect you in to even more ways to be crafty! I hope your family will enjoy these fun felt creations as much as mine has.

You can follow the journey through the World Dishes series, by following @The_Felt_Store on social media and by following The Way She Felt on Instagram @thewayshefelt_. What cultures do you think we will explore together?

Part 1: Felt Baklava

The first stop on our journey through delicious world dishes is the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea. Known for its natural beauty and delicious flavors, this is one of my personal favorite food categories. Growing up in Germany and then moving to the US, I was often around many beautiful people who were from these cultures, and thus grew up with an appreciation and love for these delicious dishes. Naturally, I passed this love and appreciation to my daughter. My 5-year old’s favorite dish is Baklava. We will create a felt version of this treat together.

Baklava is a layered desert pastry, filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey or syrup. It is a popular dish seen in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine but has its origins in the Ottoman Empire, or modern-day Turkey. Turkish immigrants constitute a very large minority in Germany and so these foods feel like home to me in a way.

Materials Used

• Felt – all felt used for this project is from The Felt Store
  • Beige Felt – Premium Wool Blend Craft Felt Sheets Value Pack – Skin Tones
  • Light Brown Felt – Viscose Craft Felt Light Brown 5001
  • Tan Felt – Viscose Craft Felt Tan 1094
  • Brown Felt – Acrylic Craft Felt Assorted Sheets Pastel (Brown tone)
• Thread – any sewing thread is fine.
  • Green (pistachio tone) embroidery floss or thread
  • Brown or tan thread
  • Needles – you need a regular sewing needle, an embroidery needle, and a thicker needle
• Optional Materials
  • Small white pastry box – I have linked the one I used here
• Scissors, ruler, felt pen and pins or Cutting Machine like Cricut Maker
  • IMPORTANT – you can hand cut your pieces or use a machine cutter like a Cricut Maker

The Felt Baklava project is quite simple and will serve as a great conversation starter with your little ones around Middle Eastern and Mediterranean culture. This project tutorial features hand stitching, because that is my preferred method, but could be completed using a sewing machine. I used hand embroidery to achieve the texture of the nuts and have a quick tutorial on the embroidery methods employed in the tutorial (French knots). These are fun and easy to create variations in size. It is a forgiving embroidery stitch and will add the touch you need to create a more convincing “pastry”.

Instructions:

Creating the Pastry Layers

1. Using the four felt colors, you will need to create a total of (6) 3 x 3.5 inch rectangles of each color, totaling (24) rectangles in the variations of brown. Note you may not use all 24 layers, I ended up using just 20.

Hand cutting: Using a white pencil or a felt pen and ruler, measure and trace out (6) 3 x 3.5 inch rectangles on one of the felt color sheets. You will cut out each of the rectangles and repeat this process for the other (3) remaining felt colors.   

Machine cutting: In the design space you will create a 3 x 3.5 inch rectangle and duplicate the image until you have 6 total rectangles. Ensure your blade is a rotary blade and that your settings are set to Felt. Using the cutting machine, cut out the project which will result in (6) rectangles. You will repeat this process for the other (3) felt color sheets.

 

2. Once all rectangles are cut, you will begin to layer them one on top of the other, alternating colors in any order you like, to create the appearance of pastry layers. You can use all 24 or as few as you like. The final product in this tutorial used a total of 20 layers.

Note: The top two layers need to be the same color to create the top flaky layer of our Baklava.

3. Move your stack of layered rectangles to the side. Take the top two layers (which should be the same color) and place in front of you.

4. Prep your embroidery needle with the pistachio green thread. You will begin to add French knots on the top layer by going through the bottom layer. This will provide the appearance of chopped pistachios on top of our baklava. Wrinkle the top layer a bit, while you are adding the French knots across the top to create the appearance of flakiness. You can make the French knots a variation of sizes to create a more realistic appearance of chopped nuts, as they are usually not uniform. By adding several knots on the top two layers, you will also be securing them to one another!