Spiral as in Baklava
My Cretan spiral baklava ready for action - Click to Enlarge The origin of baklava , a pastry composed of layers of phyllo containing nuts and soaked in honey syrup, is something of a bone of contention among certain types who have nothing better to do with their time. I have heard Turks, Lebanese, and others claim it as their own. Whoever may have invented the dish, whether Greek, Levantine, Turk or whatever, it is not made in the same way by all; the variations include the types of nuts used, the ratios of nuts to phyllo, the shapes of the dessert, and the spices and flavourings that go into the pastry itself or into its syrup. Frankly, I am not overly concerned as to whether the Byzantine Greeks, the Arabs, or the Ottomans, or even the Chinese (!) created this dessert; I know it simply as a part of traditional Greek cookery, and as far as I am concerned, baklava is Greek. This particular recipe is from Crete , from a family that I had met while backpacking on the island back ...