Baklavalicious
Words by Dalene Heck / Photography by Pete Heck
As part of our “Do It Yourself – Turkish Cooking” series, I have mentioned to a couple of Turks that I wanted to try making baklava.
They both laughed at me. Mocked me a little, even.
Apparently these little pastry-bundles-of-goodness require quite the skilled hand and a lot of patience. Our Turkish friend Güneş says that in her 60+ years on this earth, she has tried several times and never been successful.
Normally I would take such statements as a challenge and go to great lengths to Prove. Them. Wrong. But in this case, I decided to just do research to find the best baklava spot in town. Which was hard work, too. Trust me.
The winner! Delicious Gondol, of which we have become frequent patrons.
Mmmm….Get out of that pan, and into my mouth.
There is debate between the Greeks and Turks over who invented baklava. I honestly don’t care. I just want to eat it.
Chocolate + Baklava. I never knew before that such goodness existed in the world. This is by far my favorite.
Good god. I thought we were settled in our riad for the evening, but now I’m convinced we have to hit the streets of Marrakech to find some sweets.
And did you?? Did we do our job well?
We did! Had a couple fruit tarts.
I love the food making series! I haven’t had baklava with chocolate – yet.
Add it to your list of must-eats. You can thank me later.
We are eating these exact things that we bought in the Albaicyn area in Granada earlier today. No chocolate ones though!
Hope they were as good as ours! And you MUST find some chocolate ones! So good!
Oh my. How am I supposed to go on now that I know there is such a thing as chocolate baklavas?
It’s tough. I know. Imagine us – having to leave it all behind so soon….
I know that Baklava are essentially diabetes in dessert form, but they taste so good, I can’t bring myself to care! I’ve never had chocolate baklava before, but boy does it ever look good!
I had never even HEARD of chocolate baklava before. And YES, it is THAT good!
Outstanding Pete! Plus with all of your travel adventuring, you probably get enough exercise to avoid the waistline expansion 🙂
You would THINK we’d be doing enough to stop the waistline from expanding…sadly, that is not the case these days. 🙁
Chocolate baklava?!? OM NOM NOM!
Exactly. Dessert does not get much better than this!
just want to share that the filipino word for gay is “bakla” i thought this article is about gays and the word “baklavalicious” is a gay lingo. but i was surprised to see that baklava is a FOOD! and it looks really really good! its a very mouth watering delight. i wish i can try it. \(>_<)/ i want to try the chocolate
Interesting, it’s amazing the meaning of words in other languages. Yes, the chocolate ones are by far the best.
You had me at baklava, and then especially at chocolate baklava.
I knew that this post would hook a few people in. 🙂
That’s it. I am biking (or maybe I should walk?!) into town and getting more chocolate baklava NOW. Damn you two!!!!!!!!
I won’t argue if you want to go and get us some more 🙂 We might own stock in that company by now.
Oh dear, I want to try those chocolate baklavas! I feel so hungry right now. Only baklavas can fill this.
Ok, I must be the weird one, I don’t actually like baklava. I loved so much other Turkish food though!
Wha? Seriously? Dalene says this will affect your friendship 😉
Chocolate and bakhlava – sounde like a match made in heaven!
It is indeed, no matter how much of the stuff we buy, we can’t keep it around for more than a day. It’s almost magic how fast it disappears.
I find baklava so sweet and it amazes me that people go crazy over it. Hubby eats it by the bucket full!
Agreed, it is super sweet. I can only have 1 piece after a meal otherwise it seems to weigh me down.
Damn you for showing me such sweet, sugary goodness at an hour of the day when (a) I have no business eating sweets and (b) it’s too early to go out and get baklava! These posts should come with warning labels…
Ahhh, sorry Bret. We should have put the disclaimer on the post. But I have to ask at what time of day is there ‘no business eating sweets’? That’s foolishness 🙂
I’m a big fan of all these gooey Turkish treats – we kept buying boxes of pastries and Turkish delight when we were there.
The sweets are a big part of there culinary delights. Dalene is not a big fan of the Turkish delight, but I indulge. To balance the diet of sweets I buy some dried fruit and like to think that it’s helping my waistline. One can hope right?
“There is debate between the Greeks and Turks over who invented baklava. I honestly don’t care. I just want to eat it.” – So true. This dessert is so tasty and delicious!
sounds yummy- we don’t have that many turkish restaurants in LA- but I must hunt down one to try that chocolate thing. looks amazing!
It is a little taste of heaven, to be sure. Good luck in finding it!
I just licked my laptop screen. Sadly, the pics didn’t taste as good as they look.
Care to ship some of that yummy chocolate baklava goodness to #yyc? 😉
A delicious Turkish Snackbox shipped to my favorite Canadian Snackbox?! What an idea! 🙂
Love the Turkish treats!!!
Hang on. I’ll be right over. You guys clearly need some help on your baklava hunt. 🙂
The hunt is over, we are now just gorging on all the goodies we’ve found. So yes, you could come and help with that too. 🙂
I LOVE a good, homemade Baklava. I used to have some family members (related by marriage) from Macedonia, and I have never found better baklava than what Baba used to make.
I want a Baba that makes me baklava! 🙂
I also discovered chocolate baklava when I was in Turkey, and my friends and I still talk about it……DELICIOUS!
It is becoming a problem. I need one piece a day (at least).
Looks out of this world delicious and fantastic close up shots too.
MMMMMM I so want some Baklava now! As soon a I get out of these small Australian towns (which are awesome,,but still), I am going to get me some!
mouthwatering picture- beautiful!!
Wow, I am gutted that I was in Istanbul for 4 days and completely missed the chocolate Baklava – sigh! Anyway, I ate enough Baklava to feed a small country and it was just delicious. LOVE the photos too!
Hmm, feeling peckish now…