I admit, I messed up when making these this time! I forgot to add the sugar. But, since I’ve made them before (the right way) and they were delicious, I am going to share this recipe with you.
Now I’m not one to shy away from complicated recipes, but I saw Alton Brown make baklava on Good Eats on the Food Network once and it was really time consuming, not to mention that I have no idea where you would find the rose water his recipe calls for. If you love baklava like me, but don’t want the hassle, try this recipe. You could make it even simpler by buying those phyllo dough mini cups they sell in the freezer section of the grocery store.
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Pinch of salt
1 stick of butter, melted, divided
3 tablespoons honey
12 sheets phyllo dough
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Finely chop the almonds, walnuts, apricots, bread crumbs, sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, and salt in a food processor. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the melted butter and the honey and stir to combine.
(You can skip this step if using the pre-made phyllo dough cups) Place 1 sheet of phyllo on your work surface. Using a pastry brush and the remaining melted butter, brush the entire sheet of phyllo with melted butter. Cover the first sheet with a second sheet of phyllo and brush with melted butter. Continue until there is a stack of 6 sheets of phyllo. Cut the stacked phyllo rectangle into 12 equal pieces.
Gently press each cut piece of phyllo into a mini-muffin pan. Press 1 tablespoon of the nut mixture into each of the phyllo cups. Gather the ends of each of the phyllo squares and twist to make a sachet shape. Continue shaping the remaining sachets in the other mini-muffin tin. Bake until the edges of the phyllo are golden, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in muffin tins.
The other day, I was attempting to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies from my Martha Stewart’s New Classics cookbook when the chocolate chip cookie EPIC FAIL happened. It was a hot day and this recipe calls for melting the butter, then adding the sugar. I think the temperature of the butter was just too high (even though I refrigerated the dough before baking the cookies off) and they spread out way too much. They tasted fine, but definitely resemble cow pies. How, you ask, do I know what cow pie looks like? Well, I grew up next to a farm! Now how’s that for appetizing?
