Thursday, December 20, 2018

A Little Christmas Baking

Gentle Friends, I got it together enough to bake up some treats for sending out to my Family and Friends, near and far away... it seemed that time just was whooshing by... I was thinking about it all Fall and I finally decided to bake up one of my Mom's recipes... one that she always made during the Christmas Season...  baklava...  a traditional Mediterranean flaky pastry made with nuts (usually walnuts and pistachios), phyllo dough and a sweet syrup of honey and sugar...  

I figured out how much I needed and calculated that five 9x13 pans of the stuff would do...

These are pans 3 & 4 - I only have two 9x13 pans in my arsenal!!

My Mom started making baklava way back in the 1990s and it eventually became a staple of her Christmas baking regime... other things that were staples at my house ... cranberry nut bread, Mississippi Mud Cake, and various cookies, little orange blossom cupcakes... coconut cake and pound cake...  She got the recipe from a good friend in the Museum Guild she belonged to and that's the recipe I used, with a couple of tweaks.... of course... I jazzed up the syrup with a bit of lemon and for the teaspoon of cinnamon that is called for, I replaced it with my own Fall 6 Spice blend.  The fifth and last pan also got another tweak as I was running out of walnuts I ended up just replacing them with pecans (my favourite nut) and it turned out deliciously well!!  Now that the outside gift-baking is done I may end up making a few treats for us and our Christmas guests that are coming .... who knows I get mighty nostalgic around the Holidays!!!
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Thanks for stopping by sports fans.  Right now I have no plans to Post next week I am taking some time off.... but you never know??? 
 Have a super Christmas!!

Take care,
edgar


10 comments:

  1. Oh my God! I can't believe what I am seeing. Ok I have to say a few things. First of all that's one thing I didn't expect to see in your blog and you know I have been following you for years. My family comes from Constantinople. My dad was a pastry maker there when he was young. My two favourite desserts by him was my strawberry birthday cake he made for me and baklava. He made all kinds of baklava with walnut, with pistachio (my favourite) and with coconut flakes. Believe it or not I never wanted to learn to make it. I know I will never make it. But I love seeing others making it and especially in countries with no tradition to baklava. Thanks for sharing! Have great holidays. AriadnefromGreece!

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  2. oh edgar, they look divine, enjoy your holiday baking.

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  3. That looks so yummy Edgar. Can you share the recipe?

    Linda

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  4. Love this...how lucky of those to be on your gifting list! It looks fabulous...
    Merry Christmas Edgar and blessings in the New Year ....enjoy

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  5. It looks heavenly. I dare not attempt to make it - I would eat far too much of it.

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  6. Merry Christmas Edgar and family! Baklava, yum. I've had some but only from a food factory. I imagine homemade tastes out of this world.

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  7. Merry Christmas. I have never attempted Baklava. It looks delicious. Not much baking happening at my home this year. I have run out of time. Isn't it amazing how quickly time can pass.

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  8. Merry Christmas Edgar to you and Rico and your puppies!!! Thanks as always for the joy of reading your blog and following your stitching and thrifting adventures! Your baklava looks delish!!

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  9. I just watched a video of someone making baklava. I remember buying this from the greek church around the corner from my MIL house at Christmas. They had a big bake sale 2 weeks before and sold all kinds of goodies. I used to get a mixed box of cookies and one of just baklava. Everyone used to wait for me to get there with the sweets. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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  10. That looks absolutely delicious. I first tasted Baklava during my trip to Detroit. There is a lovely Mediterranean bakery there and our head would spin with the variety of goodies they have
    Your post got me go drooling and craving for some :) This post reminds me that I bought sheets to bake Baklava for Diwali, but never got to!! I better get down to baking it

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