New Recipe #4: Baklava

I may have cheated a bit on this one, since it wasn't entirely a new recipe. My dear friend Anna spent some time in Turkey and Bulgaria awhile back and when she returned had a dinner party with traditional foods from those countries. I had dessert duty. I asked Anna for recommendations and she mentioned eating a chocolate pistachio baklava that was to die for. Now, I'm not a fan of baklava. At least I wasn't. Chocolate is my vice. And since any baklava I'd ever seen was sans chocolate, I figured, what's the point? Well, chocolate pistachio baklava may have made me a believer. It was delicious. I totally messed up the recipe and it was still delicious. (I accidentally omitted half the necessary phyllo dough...)

Enter Baklava Take Two:
In light of the recent happenings in Egypt, my friends Clay and Jessica orchestrated an evening of great company, delicious middle eastern food, and lively discussions of world-happenings. I was again assigned dessert duty - baklava specifically. The request this time was for a more traditional baklava, i.e. not chocolate. Okay fine. I suppose 'normal' baklava can be tasty as well. I added orange zest, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the mix, as well as vanilla to the syrup, and couldn't resist drizzling chocolate on half of them. And I learned from my mishap and used the proper proportion of phyllo dough this time.

The nice thing about baklava is that it has the appearance of being fancy, but in reality is really really ridiculously easy to make. So the next time you're feeling simplistically fancy, give it a go. You won't regret it.

In case you were worried, they were delicious. And the chocolate one's were the first to go.