Baklava

I LOVE Baklava. Something about the sweet honey with the nuts just appeals to my palate. I recently received a large jar of fresh local honey from a friend of mine who has a bee hive. My first though to to make some baklava, and I wasn't disappointed!

Ingredients:
1 package phyllo dough
1 lbs of nuts, you can use any you want, I used a combination of almonds, walnuts, and pecans because that is what I had on hand.
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey

Directions:

• Thaw the phyllo dough according to the directions on the box.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Butter a 9 x 13 pan.
• Bring 1 cup to a boil. Turn off heat immediately. 
• Add sugar, vanilla and honey. Stir until combined. Set aside to cool. 
• Chop nuts in a food processor and toss with the cinnamon.
• Roast the nuts until you can smell them. You can do this in the oven or in a large fry pan over medium heat.
• Place two layers of pyllo dough in pan, then butter. Repeat until you have about 8 layers. 
• Then add about 3 tbls of nuts over the buttered phyllo dough. Add two layers of phyllo dough, butter, add nuts on top. 
• Repeat until you only have about 8 layers of phyllo dough left. You should run out of nuts at about the same time.
• Cut the baklava before you bake it into whatever shape/size you desire.
• Butter the top layer then bake in the over for about 50 minutes.
• Immediately drizzle the cooled sauce over the baklava. 
• The baklava will soak up the sauce in a few hours, leave uncovered.
• Enjoy!