Sini Gatmeri / Turkish Cypriot Filo Almond Swirl

I hate to make your stomachs curl with cringe, but I absolutely adore baking traditional recipes because it means I get do it with my mum. She never ever joins in, and I've recently discovered the only way that she ever will is if it involves making something nostalgic; like this filo dessert for example. As she never has the time to cook or bake anymore, It's a real treat when she does!
Traditionally, to us Turkish Cypriots, this dish is known as a 'sini gatmer', however, not short of 2000 ish miles oversea, the Turks from Turkey much prefer to call it a 'sini katmer'. Not much difference I know, but since the accents are slightly dissimilar  that one letter really does change quite a lot, even sometimes, the taste!
Anyway this dessert reeks of traditionalism, its soggy, crispy, cinnamon-y AND nutty! My family and I absolutely love it, and believe me - if you like all of those things described a second ago, you will too!

The Recipe:

1 packet ready made filo pastry

1 packet almonds (aprox 300g)

2 tins of cream* 

1 packet ricotta 

2 tbsp cinnamon (or to taste)

2 tbsp sugar (or to taste)

Sugar Syrup (serebet)

4 cups (glass) water

3 cups (glass) sugar 

*If you want the Gatmer to taste perfect, you are best off buying the cream from your local Turkish Food Centre. 

The Method:

• Start off by blitzing all of your almonds in a food processor for half a minute, or until they are nice and crumbly, a little larger than sand granules.
• Transfer the almonds into a medium sized bowl, chuck in your sugar and cinnamon and toss around until combined. 
• Using a tablespoon, mix the tinned cream into the almonds until a thick paste is formed. 
• Now crumble your ricotta using a fork and mix it in. Set aside. 
• Begin to prepare the syrup. In a large saucepan add both the sugar and water and leave on a high heat until the sugar has completely dissolved. Once it is ready transfer it into a bowl and set aside to cool. 
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
• Whilst the syrup is forming, lay out the filo pastry and using your hands, add a thick strip of the almond paste across the width of the pastry at the bottom. 
• Now roll the filo around the paste like you would when forming a chocolate log cake. 
• Continue this process until you run out of almond paste!
• Grease a large round trey with butter or oil. 
• Get one of your tubes of pastry and form a tight spiral in the very center of your large tray. 
• Now connect the rest of your tubes to the first spiral until you have a large spiral and you cannot fit any more into the tray. 
• Lightly brush the top of the pastry with an egg wash.
• Place in the oven for 25/30 minutes or until the pastry is golden on top. 
• Take out of the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. 
• Making sure that the syrup is cooled, pour it all over your pastry and let it soak before serving. You do not have to use all of the syrup, I only used about two thirds of the quantity provided for a less sweeter finish!
• Enjoy :)

Sini Gatmeri

I guess you could also say that this is my one and only (for now) Olympic bake! This weekend, thanks to Neil (bf's papa) I got to go to the women's springboard semi final! It was such an experience, so I will share my experience with the rest of you in the form of pictures...in case you hadn't already seen it on BBC 1/2/3/4/5/6/ or Sky...or in case it hadn't got in the way of your daily soaps.

Above (in zoom) is team China & Canada!

Mbakes x