Baklava Muffins

There are many things that I just cannot get enough of, but one of my absolute favorites is honey! Oh my goodness, I can't start my day until I put an unholy amount of honey in my tea. Mike is always astonished by how much goes in there. Since I love honey so much, it is safe to say that I love baklava as well. This dessert is fabulous. I first had it at The Parthenon in Chicago, and I have loved it ever since. Lately I have been finding/seeing baklava recipes all over the place. You'll probably see some more here. I found this recipe on another blog that I follow. As always, I've made a few adjustments here and there where I felt like it. I'm not really a muffin baker, but what the heck. First time for everything, right?

Filling
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I chopped them even more than the bag had them)
1/3 cup sugar
3-4 tablespoons of melted butter
1 1/2 -ish teaspoons cinnamon
-ish ground cloves (this wasn't in the original, but I see it in lots of other recipes - not too much through!)

Muffins
1 cup plus 7ish tablespoons flour (what's up with the tablespoons???)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup & 2 tablespoons buttermilk
3 tablespoons of melted butter (I just used the rest of the stick)
honey

Filling
1/2 cup honey


Preheat oven to 400

Mix all filling ingredients and set aside. I really just taste tested this until I got the right combination of sugar, cinnamon and clove. Best way to get it right!

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter, egg and honey. They original didn't call for honey, but I thought that would be wonderful. That's also why I used -ish amount of flour. I didn't know if the extra honey would make it too wet. Make a well of the dry and stir in the wet. Use a fork so that it's lumpy (apparently that's they way it is suppose to look).

The recipe says to use baking cups. I didn't have any so I just sprayed the heck out of it with baking PAM. It was fine. Here's where I came into trouble. You are supposed to fill the cups only 1/3 full with the muffin batter, put a bit of filling in and then fill the cup until about 2/3 full. I don't know what that's supposed to look like. I didn't eyeball it very well and started to run out of batter at the end and other muffins just baked quite large. Oh well. I work on presentation another time.



Let the muffins cook for about 15 minutes (mine only needed 13). Take them out and drizzle with honey. I was pretty happy with these. I think if I ever make these again, instead of drizzling with honey, I will make a honey butter to spread over.