Baklava

I absolutely love baklava! Warm, sticky, sweet, gooey little treats that are such a delight and leave you wanting more. Always enjoying it at a restaurant but never making it myself, I decided to take the plunge one day and throw on my baker's hat. Considering my previous baking experience consisted of helping my Mom make Christmas and chocolate chip cookies growing up, and showcasing a few batches of those box cake mixes from the grocery store pretending in my mind that, "I totally baked that," and in reality all I did was add an egg & water to the mix and throw it in the oven. I'm not really sure where my confidence came from that I could actually finesse this rich dessert, but I didn't stop to question myself. I went on the internet and found a recipe on allrecipes.com and then the wheels started turning. I thought the recipe was a great place to start and did have high reviews, but I wanted to customized it and make it my own. I wanted to take it to the next level and have it go from "Mmmmm" to "Holy crap this is good!"

The history of baklava reveals it came from the Far East. I also found out that several countries offer tasty variations of it. I decided I wanted to take the Armenian approach and spice mine with cinnamon and cloves. Typically it's made with walnuts or pistachio but since I was going for the "Wow" factor, I added some chopped pecans for an extra punch of rich, buttery deliciousness. Now something I totally believe is worth the extra effort, is toasting whole walnuts on a skillet prior to chopping and mixing with the spices. It releases an aroma and enhances the nutty flavor. 

So I have the spices I want to use, my nuts are toasted, chopped and ready to go, my sauce is already made and cooling in the fridge, and now all I have to do is unwrap the phyllo dough and start layering. This shouldn't be that hard, right? Hummmm, well that all depends.... Let me tell you, if you have not worked with phyllo dough before you might end up throwing a couple of the sheets away and yelling out a few curse words here and there; but it does get easier once you get the hang of it. I was ripping it, it was drying out, it wasn't lying right in the pan, I had all sort of issues going on! Just like they say in Hollywood; "Fake it till you make it!" That's pretty much what I had to do as I was stacking my layers trying to remember if I was on layer 4, 5 or 6? Once I ran out of dough (some of it made its way into the trash not by choice), I covered my last layer with nuts and popped it in the oven. Bake, bake, bake, wait, wait, wait, drizzle sauce on top and Wah-lah! Warm fresh baklava at your finger tips. Literally!

Baklava

·         1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough

·         3 ½ cups of chopped walnuts (toasted)

·         ½ cup of chopped pecans

·         ¾ cup butter

·         1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

·         ½ teaspoon of ground cloves

·         1 ½ cup water

·         1 ½ cup white sugar

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·         1 cup honey (100% Natural)

Directions

1.    Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.

2.    Stovetop: Cook whole walnuts in a skillet at medium-high heat for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Note: Walnuts can be toasted dry or with a dash of oil.

3.    Once nuts are toasted, chop the walnuts, add the chopped pecans and toss with ground cinnamon & ground cloves. Set aside.

4.    Make sauce prior to baking the baklava. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Let pan cool, cover and place in the fridge.

5.    Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan. Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth or paper towel to keep from drying out as you work.

6.    Place two sheets of dough in pan, brush melted butter on using a bbq brush but do not saturate the dough. Wrinkles in the dough are good. It will make it flakey. Sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top of dough. Repeat dough, butter and nuts until you have 6-8 layers.

7.    Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes a little more than half way through the dish. Do not cut all the way to the bottom. Bake for about 50 minutes to 1 hour. Baklava should be golden and crisp.

8.    Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Cut all the way through and serve in cupcake papers.