baklava

When I was asked to make a Persian New Year cake I wasn’t really sure what to do as I had never seen or heard of one before. There isn’t a traditional dessert as such so my task was to create a cake to celebrate by combining traditional Middle Eastern flavours. I chose to make a pistachio cake layered with honey buttercream and raspberry and pomegranate jam. I tripled the recipe I used for this cake as I knew it would be delicious and be able to hold the treats on top. I coated the whole cake in the honey buttercream and covered the sides with crushed pistachios. For the top of the cake …

Having been brought up on Middle Eastern food, Baklava is one of my favourite sweet treats. Despite having tried many varieties at different places, like with most foods, the one my Grandmother makes is by far the best so I asked her to teach me. Baklava doesn’t have that many ingredients but requires making the perfect sugar syrup and rolling which took me a few times to get right. The best part was …