Food: Baklava

Baklava. Mmmmm! This is a fave in our house. *Edited (It's a Turkish pastry, not Greek - thanks Gizem Mizem!:)) It's a Turkish pastry made with super thin "leaves" of dough (phyllo dough), sugar and cinnamon, chopped walnuts, and topped off with a honey syrup. My sis has this amazing recipe for it. Super easy to make, and with only a few ingredients - these are great to make for a get-together. Each recipe yields over two dozen bars (you can make them as small or as big as you like).

Baklava

3 cups walnuts, finely chopped

3/4 cup sugar

2-1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 lb. frozen phyllo dough, thawed

3 sticks butter, melted, or butter flavor non-stick cooking spray

Syrup:

1-1/2 cups water

3/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 2-inch strip lemon rind

3/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine nuts, sugar and cinnamon. Keeping unused sheets covered with plastic wrap (they can dry out super quick and become crumbly), place 7 sheets of phyllo, one at a time in the bottom of an 8"x14" pan, brushing each sheet with melted butter (or spraying with non-stick cooking spray). Sprinkle top sheet with 1-1/2 cups of the nut mixture. Layer remaining phyllo leaves over nuts, brushing (or spraying) each leaf with butter. Cut pastry half deep into small diamond-shaped pieces with a sharp knife. Bake until golden brown, about 30-45 minutes.

While baklava is baking, prepare syrup. Combine water and all syrup ingredients except honey in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add honey and simmer 5 minutes more. Remove lemon peel and cool. Remove baklava from oven and pour cool syrup over hot pastry. Cool. Cut along scored lines and serve.

*Notes: I used half butter and half cooking spray to prepare mine. You still get the yummy goodness of butter, but not 3 sticks worth. I also only use about half of the syrup at the end, so I usually cut the syrup recipe in half.