Baklava... With Love

When Krystyna Daniels says, “There is never enough baklava,” she’s most likely talking about the baked goods at the annual Nashville Greek Festival. The three-day event draws 9,000 visitors to the church campus on Franklin Pike and reliably sells out of its sweet inventory of flaky nut pastries year after year. And when it comes to the traditional Mediterranean triangles layered with phyllo, nuts and honey, we know why.

“Making baklava is a labor of love, around feasts or holidays,” says Katina Stavrou, who organizes the festival’s bake sale. Katina is founder of ELIA Greek Market, an online business that imports olive oil from her family’s groves in Greece, along with honey, spices and Greek pasta. The sixth generation in her family to work in olive production, Katina now lives and runs her import business in Nashville. On a phone call from her summer stay among family in the Peloponnese, Katina explains the baklava tradition in her part of the Mediterranean, adding that Greek baklava usually includes walnuts and honey, whereas the North African version of the pastry tends to showcase pistachio.

We’re thrilled Katina shared her family recipe for baklava with us. She recommends it with a cup of coffee in the evening or crumbled over ice cream. Most importantly, she says, “It doesn’t taste good straight out of the oven. You have to let the syrup go in between the phyllo and nuts. It’s got to sit for a few hours before you serve it.”

You’ll need walnuts, phyllo, butter, sugar and, if you’re like us, a generous helping of patience and self-control while it cools.