Happy New Year - It's Baklava time!

It's New Year's Eve afternoon & kinda nippy outside - like 45 degrees!
And that means it's time to bake some baklava! Yummy (I hope!)

First sugar, water, lemon, whole cinnamon and cloves boil and make the kitchen smell like elysium (that's Greek for "heaven on earth")!




Walnuts and pecans get made into itty bitty little pieces with the first smashing tool I could find. Think of it as "therapy"! Ha!




It may look like the recent snow we've had in Texas, but it's really sugar on top of the smashed nuts and ground cinnamon and cloves! If you've got
scratch-n-sniff on your computer, this would be a good place for that!

Honey Frances watches attentively ... hoping that a renegade nut comes her way!

then looks up at the island … there are butter wrappers that she hopes have her name on them!




The sugar spiced water cools and the butter is melting! We're well on our way to baklava!



The butter must be clarified - that’ll be for venison soup in the crock pot!


The layering of phyllo begins – with butter in between each layer!



A layer of nuts! The plot thickens & so does the baklava!


The finished baklava is scored and ready for baking!



Diamonds (of baklava) are a girl’s best friend, right? The baklava is cooling!



Happy New Year from all of us to you!