BAKLAVA WITH WALNUTS

Every housewife has her own way of preparing baklava. This is my aunt's recipe and it's amazing! I love baklava in every way, I can't resist it. And who can resist those juicy, sweet layers melting in your mouth? Oh man, I would give a lifetime achievement award to the person who invented it :) 

The downside of baklava are the calories, so do not overconsume it. Nevertheless I enjoy baklava, I consume it maybe once a year. When I was younger, it wasn't a problem to eat it more frequently, but as I become older, those calories just looooove to get stuck to my body :)

Ingredients:

• 500 g thin baklava crusts
• 500 g of crushed walnuts
• Mix 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 packet of vanilla sugar and add to the walnuts
• 250 g melted butter or margarine
• cloves as needed

Syrup

• 600 g sugar
• 600 ml of water
• a few circles of lemon

Preparation:

1. First, mix the crushed walnuts with the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. That will be our filling.
2. The syrup can be prepared immediately because it should be lukewarm when pouring over the baklava. Boil the sugar with water for 15 minutes. Once cooked, set aside to cool and add a few slices of lemon.
3. Arrange crusts in a baking tray that best suits the size of the crusts.
4. Melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan.
5. Coat the tray with a little oil and put one crust.
6. Sprinkle each crust with melted butter and arrange them on top of each other. On the first 3 and last 3 crusts, only butter is sprinkled, and on the other crusts, we sprinkle butter plus the walnut filling.
7. At the end, make sure you have some butter left to sprinkle the baklava on top. If not, sprinkle with a little oil.
8. Before baking, cut baklava into cubes and on each cube from above, attach 1 clove. Cloves do not allow the crusts to deform and give a wonderful aroma (should not be eaten). 
9. Bake baklava at 200 C degrees (390 F) for about 20 minutes or until it starts to go golden brown.
10. After baking, leave to cool for a few minutes and then pour the cooled syrup over it. Leave to cool and soak.
11. Once cool, place in the fridge covered with aluminum foil. After a few hours, it is ready to eat.