Homemade Baklava Experiment

I love to bake, but just because I say I love it doesn't mean I'm particularly good at it! I must admit that sometimes my efforts are purely a swing and a miss, but other times I manage to hit a home run and produce a real crowd pleaser.

When my husband asked me to give baklava a try I was a little apprehensive. Let's just say I put it off for weeks until finally I felt sufficiently guilty that I had ignored his requests and pleas for so long. In my defense, there's a little restaurant down the street that has IN-CRED-IBLE baklava that's homemade by the restaurant owner's Mother - Crispy golden flakes, layered with a sinfully gooey, sweet and nutty syrup - How the heck was I supposed to compete with that? Well, I tried.

In all honesty, the recipe I found on Martha's site was pretty easy peasy but it wasn't anything like the "flour, milk and eggs" sort of recipe that I was used to. Aside from the delicate phyllo dough tearing and ripping while I tried to handle it, everything went pretty smoothly!

{A note to those of you who want to give this recipe a try - I think the amount of sugar and butter that it calls for is definitely more than you need. I had about a stick of melted butter left in my bowl when all was said and done. The recipe calls for quite a bit of sugar to create a syrup that you pour on top once it's been baked. I'd say if you like your baklava on the gooier side stick to the recipe, but if you like it to be something you can pick up and handle without syrup dripping down your hand I suggest dropping a cup of sugar from the recipe, or just pour about half of the syrup on top in the end.}

My husband's verdict: "Great flavor, but really gooey!" - I'm gonna say I only made it to third base on this one. Oh well!! Bisous!