Making Baklava

First I must remind myself not to pronounce this bak-la-va; it's bak-lava.

Or in my mind BAK-LAVA!!! 

Because it's so delicious I think it rightly deserves capital letters. 

Even in German it should get more than the initial letter capitalized - it is that good. 

Yes. Yes. Yesssss. 

Just LOOK at that! 

Right-O! First things first. 

Apart from thawing the phyllo pastry, which I didn't make, (Another time. Maybe...) is to find an appropriate pan. I knew I had a 9"x13" somewhere. Shoot. 

Found it in the utensil drawer, housing utensils. 

As much as this pan is a house for larger kitchen utensils, and a house (this condo) is a house for me 

- does anyone get that reference? Mom I know you do - 

I emptied it immediately in search of homemade mouth-watering pastry/nut/honey desire...

Coincidently, I discovered a real cork screw, a Sunday spoon, a sharp, powerful pair of sheers 

and the little, green, tickly brush I needed for buttering my pastry sheets :) 

Did I convince you these are Christmas nuts? 

Or just that I'm nuts for Christmas? 

Either way, those nuts were expensive! 

Bulk Barn seems to be the best source for quality and price in Calgary 

and you can buy in whatever quantity you choose.

(Do let me know if you have any other suggestions of awesome places to shop, please.)  

My personal purchase size yesterday was pretty exact, as in 'do not even snack on one nut', 

and with two vanilla beans, I still managed to hit the $25 mark. 

That's half the quantity suggested by the recipe, btw. 

I think my frugalness may be showing...

Cut after 30 minutes in the fridge. 

I did use almost a pound of phyllo, though, and the rest became a mushroom Strudel. 

As for butter I used about 1 1/3 - 1 1/2 cups. 

The sauce, mmmm sauce, vanilla honey sauce! Is, well, yes drinkable :) 

However there are no pictures because it looks pretty plain-jane...

You'll need most of that for pouring over the hot baklava, but since the recipe makes 

at least a cup and a half and the rest (a few tbsp) is becoming my new coffee sweetener!

Find the recipe I used here, at HowSweetEats.

Awesome and great big thanks to her for the recipe!

***(I halved the nuts)