Sweets for the Sweet : Baklava with Mary

It's been half a year or more since these pictures were taken and I don't know why it's taken me this long to share them, but here they are now.

For many many reasons I am truly lucky to have Mary as a close friend. In addition to all the help she's given me in the kitchen, she's just a swell person. I adore her. From time to time she and I meet online on weekend mornings for cooking projects. Most of the time it's bread, but we've done some other stuff too, including our King Cakes and this Baklava.

I'd taken the book The Olive and The Caper out from the library and fallen in love with 3/4's of the recipes. The recipe and variations of the baklava interested me - the only history I have with the sweet is buying the occasional piece from the Middle Eastern market we stopped at once in a while when we lived in Calgary. But it sounded like fun and not too hard, and Mary thought the same so in the fall we made baklava together - her on the East coast of the US, me on the West coast of Canada.


Below is the ground walnuts and almonds mixed with cinnamon and melted butter.


The filo is brushed with melted butter and stacked in the baking dish, then layered with the ground nuts. I'm pretty sure I cheated and did fewer layers than I was supposed to so I wouldn't have to go buy more filo.


After the layering is complete, use a sharp knife to cut the dish into diamonds.


And then bake until golden and crisp. But don't taste yet, it's not done! You have to make your syrup to pour over the top. I made the coffee syrup from the book as it has no alcohol and some of my co-workers don't drink. I think Mary made her syrup with orange liqueur.


Then you must wait at least a couple of hours to allow the syrup to soak into the layers.


I was pleasantly surprised at how...authentic this tasted. And it wasn't difficult either. I took some to work to share the next day and it was gone within minutes. A couple of people even asked what store I'd bought it at!


Gorgeous, gorgeous. Make sure you really love Baklava or have lots of people to share with, this will get soggy within a few days.

Sweets for the Sweet : Baklava with Mary

It's been half a year or more since these pictures were taken and I don't know why it's taken me this long to share them, but here they are now.

For many many reasons I am truly lucky to have Mary as a close friend. In addition to all the help she's given me in the kitchen, she's just a swell person. I adore her. From time to time she and I meet online on weekend mornings for cooking projects. Most of the time it's bread, but we've done some other stuff too, including our King Cakes and this Baklava.

I'd taken the book The Olive and The Caper out from the library and fallen in love with 3/4's of the recipes. The recipe and variations of the baklava interested me - the only history I have with the sweet is buying the occasional piece from the Middle Eastern market we stopped at once in a while when we lived in Calgary. But it sounded like fun and not too hard, and Mary thought the same so in the fall we made baklava together - her on the East coast of the US, me on the West coast of Canada.


Below is the ground walnuts and almonds mixed with cinnamon and melted butter.


The filo is brushed with melted butter and stacked in the baking dish, then layered with the ground nuts. I'm pretty sure I cheated and did fewer layers than I was supposed to so I wouldn't have to go buy more filo.


After the layering is complete, use a sharp knife to cut the dish into diamonds.


And then bake until golden and crisp. But don't taste yet, it's not done! You have to make your syrup to pour over the top. I made the coffee syrup from the book as it has no alcohol and some of my co-workers don't drink. I think Mary made her syrup with orange liqueur.


Then you must wait at least a couple of hours to allow the syrup to soak into the layers.


I was pleasantly surprised at how...authentic this tasted. And it wasn't difficult either. I took some to work to share the next day and it was gone within minutes. A couple of people even asked what store I'd bought it at!


Gorgeous, gorgeous. Make sure you really love Baklava or have lots of people to share with, this will get soggy within a few days.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!* King Cake for Mardi Gras.

It's Mardi Gras, aka Fat Tuesday today! Mardi Gras is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. And Lent is the 40 day period (excluding Sundays) before Easter, and is a time (for those who follow) of prayer and self denial. Meaning you would abstain from something (drinking, eating chocolate, whatever) for 40 days. Which I guess is why Fat Tuesday would be a big deal; the last hurrah before you must go without your chosen vice for 40 days.

To be honest, I've never paid much attention to Mardi Gras. There are no huge Mardi Gras celebrations around here, and we do not practice Lent, choosing to keep our vices close to us all year round.

Last month Mary and I baked together through the magic of instant messaging, and we had so much fun we decided to make it a monthly occasion. Last week Mary emailed me to see if I would be interested in getting together to try our hands at King Cake. Great! I said. And then Googled King Cake to see exactly what it is.

There are tons and tons of different King Cake recipes, but basically it's a sweet bread dough. Some have fillings, some don't. Mary chose a recipe from Emeril Lagasse that had a sweetened cream cheese filling. So this past Sunday Mary and I met online at 8:00 my time and got cooking.

Emeril's recipe - here it is for you - makes a huge cake of 20 to 22 servings. Mary - who is my baking guru; my go-to-girl for anything flour and yeast related - said I could halve the recipe.

So I did. I ended up having to make the dough twice. The first time I halved everything BUT the butter and had to throw out the dough. The second time around I was still having trouble with the dough coming together, but added some extra milk. It was pretty iffy looking, but my patience was running thin, and it wasn't even 9 AM yet. I proofed the dough in the oven with the light on, as Mary has taught me to do, and after a bit of extra time the dough still looked funny, but it had risen.

I rolled out the dough and spread the filling along one side, then rolled and formed the log into a ring. It was tough to pinch the seam closed, but throughout the second rising of the dough I kept pinching.



While the dough was having its second rising I got my sugars ready. The two stores I checked out had a crappy selection of colored sugar - red and green only. So I made my own gold, green and purple sugars with regular sugar, food coloring and my mini chopper. The purple represents justice, green represents faith and the gold represents power.



Normally a small plastic baby (representing baby Jesus) or a pecan half are inserted in the cake. Whomever find the baby or nut in their piece is the Queen or King of the party, and must prepare the King Cake next Mardi Gras. Because I am sharing this with lots of people at various places I didn't put one in.

My cake baked for about 35 minutes, and then I left it to cool.



My middle closed up, though. I should have made the center larger.

Then I made the frosting - icing sugar, lemon juice and milk. After icing, it was time for the sugar.

Decorating with the sugar was really awkward, and I didn't do a super job. But I think that for a first effort, it looks pretty ok:



Luckily we didn't eat lunch that day, so I had no guilt about eating a piece.



This is really, really good! The dough isn't overly sweet, so the sugar and the frosting don't push this over the top. The bread is tender, and the cream cheese filling is very cheesecake-like. I do have some gaps between the filling and dough, and that's my fault for not being more careful during the rolling. It doesn't affect the taste, of course.

If you're up for a day in the kitchen, give this a try! But remember - King Cake can NOT be made before Twelfth Night or after Mardi Gras day! But don't ask me why.

Thanks to Mary - can't wait to see what next month brings!


*Let the good times roll!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!* King Cake for Mardi Gras.

It's Mardi Gras, aka Fat Tuesday today! Mardi Gras is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. And Lent is the 40 day period (excluding Sundays) before Easter, and is a time (for those who follow) of prayer and self denial. Meaning you would abstain from something (drinking, eating chocolate, whatever) for 40 days. Which I guess is why Fat Tuesday would be a big deal; the last hurrah before you must go without your chosen vice for 40 days.

To be honest, I've never paid much attention to Mardi Gras. There are no huge Mardi Gras celebrations around here, and we do not practice Lent, choosing to keep our vices close to us all year round.

Last month Mary and I baked together through the magic of instant messaging, and we had so much fun we decided to make it a monthly occasion. Last week Mary emailed me to see if I would be interested in getting together to try our hands at King Cake. Great! I said. And then Googled King Cake to see exactly what it is.

There are tons and tons of different King Cake recipes, but basically it's a sweet bread dough. Some have fillings, some don't. Mary chose a recipe from Emeril Lagasse that had a sweetened cream cheese filling. So this past Sunday Mary and I met online at 8:00 my time and got cooking.

Emeril's recipe - here it is for you - makes a huge cake of 20 to 22 servings. Mary - who is my baking guru; my go-to-girl for anything flour and yeast related - said I could halve the recipe.

So I did. I ended up having to make the dough twice. The first time I halved everything BUT the butter and had to throw out the dough. The second time around I was still having trouble with the dough coming together, but added some extra milk. It was pretty iffy looking, but my patience was running thin, and it wasn't even 9 AM yet. I proofed the dough in the oven with the light on, as Mary has taught me to do, and after a bit of extra time the dough still looked funny, but it had risen.

I rolled out the dough and spread the filling along one side, then rolled and formed the log into a ring. It was tough to pinch the seam closed, but throughout the second rising of the dough I kept pinching.



While the dough was having its second rising I got my sugars ready. The two stores I checked out had a crappy selection of colored sugar - red and green only. So I made my own gold, green and purple sugars with regular sugar, food coloring and my mini chopper. The purple represents justice, green represents faith and the gold represents power.



Normally a small plastic baby (representing baby Jesus) or a pecan half are inserted in the cake. Whomever find the baby or nut in their piece is the Queen or King of the party, and must prepare the King Cake next Mardi Gras. Because I am sharing this with lots of people at various places I didn't put one in.

My cake baked for about 35 minutes, and then I left it to cool.



My middle closed up, though. I should have made the center larger.

Then I made the frosting - icing sugar, lemon juice and milk. After icing, it was time for the sugar.

Decorating with the sugar was really awkward, and I didn't do a super job. But I think that for a first effort, it looks pretty ok:



Luckily we didn't eat lunch that day, so I had no guilt about eating a piece.



This is really, really good! The dough isn't overly sweet, so the sugar and the frosting don't push this over the top. The bread is tender, and the cream cheese filling is very cheesecake-like. I do have some gaps between the filling and dough, and that's my fault for not being more careful during the rolling. It doesn't affect the taste, of course.

If you're up for a day in the kitchen, give this a try! But remember - King Cake can NOT be made before Twelfth Night or after Mardi Gras day! But don't ask me why.

Thanks to Mary - can't wait to see what next month brings!


*Let the good times roll!