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.

1. To prepare Simple Syrup, combine water, sugar, honey, cinnamon stick and orange rind in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Stir well. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Remove orange rind and cinnamon stick. Refrigerate until chilled.

2. To make Nut Mixture, finely grind nuts in a food processor. Toss with cinnamon and sugar, set aside.

3. Remove the phyllo dough from the package and unroll on the counter. Cover with a damp cloth to keep phyllo from drying out.

4. Lay one sheet of phyllo horizontally in a buttered 9x13 baking dish. Lay the next piece to cover the bottom of the pan overlapping the first piece. The sheet is going to be  larger than the pan—that’s okay! Just do a bit of scrunching or going up the edges.

5. Lightly butter phyllo sheet and place another on top. Repeat this process until you have about 8 sheets layered in the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with 1/4 Nut Mixture. Layer and lightly butter 4 sheets of phyllo and then add more Nut Mixture; keep that pattern until you have a full 4 layers. The interior phyllo layers have 4 sheets each. The important part is the decent bottom layer and heavy top layer. The top layer should have about 10 sheets.

6. After you’ve added more butter on top and tucked corners in the pan, place baklava in the fridge for about 30 minutes. This will help it cut seamlessly. Using a sharp knife, cut baklava before baking—traditional pattern is halfway through the layers (lengthwise into 3, crosswise into 4). Next, cut each piece in half, diagonally to end up with 24 pieces total. Or make it easy and cut triangles.

7. Preheat oven to 325F.

8. Bake for about 1 hour, or until top is golden brown. Watch baklava carefully. Remove from oven.

9. We always use baklava right out of the oven and chilled syrup. You should ladle the syrup over the baklava and hear a sizzle. No sizzle, soggy baklava. Sizzle, crispy baklava!

Tips: Keep phyllo moist and covered while working. The key to crispy baklava is for the cold simple syrup to meet the hot baklava.