Baklava made with local cinnamon honey

Thursday night we had a BBQ with old family friends. I made Baklava the night before to have as a desert. It's one of my all time favorite desserts, It's actually quite easy to make yet tastes delicious.

•1 pound frozen phyllo sheets

•1 cup melted butter (I used margarine)

•2 cups finely chopped walnuts or blanched almonds

•1/2 cup sugar

•1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

•3/4 cup sugar

•3/4 cup honey

•1 cup water

•1 tablespoon lemon juice

I thaw the phyllo pastry overnight in the fridge, so it's all ready to go the following day. Remove pastry, depending on the size of your baking dish (mine is an old casserole dish I believe) you can fold the pastry then rip it all in half so the pieces will fit evenly in your pan. You can either choose to use half your pastry, then have one layer with the nut mixture, or have 2-3 layers in between the phyllo. I usually do mine in 3 layers.

Have a damp dish cloth/tea towel ready to go when you start using the phyllo. It can dry up pretty fast, or the sheets will stick together. Grease your pan with some butter, and lay down the phyllo sheets two at a time, brushing each sheet with the melted butter. Keep on layering the pastry until you want a nut layer; combine the nuts, sugar, and cinnamon and spread evenly over the pastry. Repeat; brushing the sheets with butter and however many layers of nuts you want. Make sure to have a good layer of pastry on the top.

Cut the finished baklava pastry into diamonds (I usually cut 8-10 pieces in it) before baking.

Bake at 400°  until brown; 30-35 mins. While this is baking, combine the honey (I used locally bought cinnamon honey, but you could easily add a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to this mixture), brown sugar, water & lemon juice in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring often until it is like syrup. Once the baklava has cooled from the oven, pour the entire mixture over.