Maple Baklava

I've given out this recipe so many times, I figure it's time to give it a permanent online home where people can find it. The story behind it is that my husband loves real maple syrup with a pure and undying passion. A few years back, we started a search for the world's most perfect maple dessert. Baked goods- cookies and the like- tend to overwhelm the maple, which is a delicate flavor. Maple frosting is pretty tasty (goes well on spice cake). Maple flan is excellent. But we kept looking. Then one of my coworkers gave me her recipe for baklava, and an inspiration was born. I revamped the recipe to swap out the usual honey for maple syrup (maple typically has more water, so I had to recalculate the proportions to keep the sugar content constant), and substituted cashews for the nuts- both for their mild flavor and because of a family member who is allergic to the more usual types of nuts. The result- was outstanding. The recipe has since traveled far and wide, and I occasionally meet someone for the first time who says, "Maple baklava? Oh, you're that Robin!".

I wish now I'd thought to take a picture of the baklava last week- but let's face it, it didn't last all that long!

Robin's Maple Baklava
1 lb filo dough
1 lb butter (or margarine), melted
1 lb cashews, crushed

Cut filo dough to fit 9 x 13 greased cake pan. Place one sheet of filo dough in the pan and brush with melted butter, repeat this process until 3-5 sheets line the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle nuts thinly over the sheet. Add another sheet, brush with melted butter. Continue alternating 3-5 layers of butter sheets with nuts until only 3 sheets remain. Sprinkle remaining nuts, and continue placing and buttering last 3 sheets until all are used.

Cut in diamond shaped pieces. Bake in 300 degree oven for 45 minutes, then raise the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 15 more minutes. Pour syrup over baklava.

Syrup:
2 c. granulated sugar
3/4 c. water
1 1/4 c. maple syrup
5 cloves
1 tsp lemon juice (or 1 slice lemon)

Combine ingredients in saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour syrup over hot baklava.

Sugar Buzz

The first clue that it's maple season:


The second:


The third (note the parking lot is full and there's steam coming up from the boiler).


And here's the boiler, boiling...


We came, we saw, we ate enough sugar to drop a roomful of diabetics. There was sugar on snow. It was lovely. (Here, my husband embraces his cultural heritage, while our friend Catt holds up a fine example of solidified maple.)


After the ritual consumption of maple product, there was a bookstore crawl. I passed a yarn shop. Or rather, didn't pass it:


Well, I *was* out of sock yarn. And I had two knitting projects with me, the cardigan (I knitted on the sleeve on the way out), and I brought a few random balls from the stash for my walking-around project:


This yarn was given to me, so it didn't arrive with a plan, though I had a couple of ideas. I had thought of doing a scarf, but after knitting a few inches, I didn't like the effect of knitting the two colors together in pattern, so I separated the lavender and white, and started knitting blocks instead, very simple stockinette blocks with a little seed stitch border to stop them curling (because this yarn sticks like the very fiends of hell, and fixing mistakes is accursedly difficult in it). Unfortunately, I'm only getting a block and a half from each skein, and there are four skeins. Six ten-inch blocks isn't going to be enough. I'll need to find a third coordinating color and knit border strips to finish this off. Perhaps in some slightly darker shade of purple. (It can't make this blanket look any more Easter-y than it already does.) At any rate, it'll be another four skeins of stash yarn tasked to a purpose, which is all to the good.

It was a lovely day, despite the weather:


Now if the caffeine would just wear off so I can get some sleep!