Baklava

Undeterred by the failures with the macaroons, I chose to attempt another tricky recipe. I have always loved baklava, but it can be very expensive to buy. Therefore I decided to attempt my own, producing something that tasted good, and was in larger quantities than the small boxes of baklava you get in the supermarket.

A I often do, I turned to the BBC Food website, and after a quick search, I came across this brilliant recipe from Roberta and Julia Sawalha. This recipe actually made baklava so easy to create, and I was easily able to adapt it when I struggled to get hold of ground cardamom. A a substitute, I used nutmeg, cinnamon, and mixed spice. I like to think this tasted as good as the cardamom would have done. In fact, the baklava I made were even approved by my housemate's Turkish and Iranian friends, so I must have done something right!

Pre-removal from the tray, one of the trickiest parts!

One day I would love to be able to make my own filo pastry from scratch, but being such a novice (and seeing how difficult it was on a series 3 episode of The Great British Bake-Off) I decided to get some ready-made pastry instead.  Even the great Mary Berry herself uses ready-made filo pastry.  The recipe with all the layers of filo pastry was time-consuming, but well worth it, and not to difficult for me to have a go at. A great recipe for a novice as well as a more experienced baker.

Beckie.