Easy Baklava Cookies

Love the idea of making baklava, but unsure of your ability to work with the delicate, paper-thin sheets of phyllo dough that comprise the rich dessert? Love the taste of paklava, but wary of all the calories the syrupy, buttery sweet contains?

Have I got a treat for you!

I don’t really have a traditional name for these light "cookies," but they are a family favorite in our house – easy and quick to make, and not as fattening as paklava, but quite similar in the way they taste.

Here’s how to make them:

1.Take 8 – 10 sheets of phyllo dough (more or less, it doesn’t actually matter) and keeping them rolled up, "chiffonade" them, making cuts every quarter inch or so down the length of the rolled dough. Then, "fluff" them to separate the long fettuccine-like strips, gathering them into a big pile.
2.Next, melt about 2 Tablespoons of butter, and SLOWLY mix it into the strips, fluffing with your fingers, to keep the strips from clumping.
3.Taking small handfuls from the pile, mound them onto a baking sheet to form little "nests."
4.In a food processor, finely grind about 1 cup of walnuts (or any nuts) with about 1/3 cup of sugar and 3 Tablespoons of a mixture of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.
5.Heavily sprinkle this nut mixture over the tops of each of the nests.
6.Bake at 350 degree F. for about 8-10 minutes – keep checking – until the cookies are browned lightly – but not burnt.

These cookies are so much lighter than traditional baklava, but the taste could pleasantly fool you! (They also taste great beneath a scoop of vanilla ice cream).