Welcome to my home for the holiday season.

Announcer: "Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ [Middle Eastern music playing] Special seasonal sweets, straight from Lebanon and the Middle East, always signify the holiday season for me.

Ever since I was a little girl, I grew up to the sights, sounds, and smells of fragrant orange blossom water, floral rosewater, and the warm aroma of baklawa baking away by my beautiful mother.

And today, we are making and baking some of the most famous sweets and some of my personal favorites for the holiday season.

First up is my blissful baklawa, a decadent phyllo dough and walnut diamond-cut dessert that is deliciously delightful, followed by my homemade phyllo dough cups filled with a luscious Lebanese cream, tasty toppings, then finished off with my orange blossom syrup.

Last but certainly not least is the queen sweet of Lebanon and the Middle East, a special treat simply called knefeh.

Deliciously decadent and absolutely divine, my Lebanese signature sweets are sure to be a special treat for your family and friends this holiday season, from my Lebanese kitchen to yours.

Welcome to my Lebanese kitchen, and in today's show, we're gonna be making seasonal sweets that signify the holiday season for me, right from Lebanon and the Middle East, and today we're making some of the most famous and some of my personal favorites.

So the first thing that we are starting with today is our baklawa, also called baklava, but you can try to say the "baklawa."

It's kind of breathy.

And I have all of my essential ingredients that you always need when you're making any of our Lebanese or Middle Eastern sweets.

And the first one is our clarified butter, also known as rendered butter.

In Arabic, we call it samna, and I call it liquid gold.

As you can see, it is a beautiful gold color.

And now we need to make our filling first before we start working with our phyllo dough sheets.

So I have my friendly food processor here, always a friend in a Lebanese or Middle Eastern kitchen, or any kitchen, for that matter.

I have some beautiful whole raw unsalted walnuts, and this is 5 cups, so we're gonna pour this right into our food processor just like that.

And then we have one cup of white granulated sugar.

We're gonna pour this right over the walnuts, and we're gonna place our lid on and we are going to grind the nuts until they're like a coarse meal.

We don't want to finely grind them and we don't want to sort of coarsely grind them.

We want to kind of get them right in the middle.

[whirring] So now we are going to transfer our ground walnut and sugar mixture right into our mixing bowl.

So I have my clarified butter and we're gonna infuse some flavor into our filling.

So I have two tablespoons of our clarified butter, and then I'm also gonna infuse some of our orange blossom water, which I absolutely love.

In Arabic, we call it mazaher, and it's basically distilled from the orange leaves.

Always love it.

Never gets old for me, smelling orange blossom water.

I'm also gonna add two tablespoons of this, because I like to have a really pronounced flavor of the orange blossom water.

And this is also gonna be used in our syrup as well.

So we're gonna put that back.

Just like that, and now we're just gonna mix the butter and the orange blossom water into the nut filling.

OK, beautiful.

So you can see that it's nice and sort of a golden color and it's nice and moist.

OK, so now that we have our wondrous walnut filling all ready, we're just gonna set it aside.

I'm gonna move some of our other things out of the way as well, and we're gonna grab our sheet pan so we can start making our blissful baklawa.

I have a 12 x 17 sheet pan, and it actually is pretty much the same size as the phyllo dough sheets.

And today we're using number 4, which is a thin phyllo dough.

OK, so I had a moist towel that I just removed on the phyllo dough sheets.

OK, so now we are going to take our pastry brush that I have right here, which you can easily find nowadays, even in supermarkets, and we are going to dip it into our clarified liquid gold butter, and we just want to do a nice coat on the sheet pan of the butter.

So now we're gonna take our first phyllo dough sheet just like that.

So what we're doing, we're doing 14 sheets for our first layer, and then we're gonna do the walnut filling, and then we're gonna be doing another 14 sheets.

OK, so now we're gonna take our wonderful walnut mixture that we have sitting right over here, and I'm gonna take about half the amount for our first layer.

You can just sort of pour it right over, and then we're gonna spread it out with our spatula just like that.

A little tip and trick of mine that I'm gonna share with you is that the next layer of phyllo dough, we are going to dip our brush into our clarified liquid gold butter, and we are gonna actually brush it right on the board, because we want the butter in this bottom of the phyllo dough sheet to stick to the walnut filling.

Just like that.

And then we are going to lift it up and simply place the buttered side down right on top of the walnut filling, and then we are also gonna butter the top as well, and I like to because it has the walnuts underneath, so it's kind of crunchy underneath there at this point.

You just sort of dab it.

Just dab it going in rows all along the phyllo dough sheet so that the next layer can stick.

I am just buttering up our last layer and final layer of our phyllo dough that I have right on top, and the last layer you want to make sure to generously butter it.

That looks lovely to me.

We are going to score it.

So we're gonna use the back of our small, sharp paring knife, and we're gonna make 8 vertical rows going down.

So we're just scoring at this point.

I like to start, and I eyeball it.

You can certainly take out a measuring stick if you like.

I like to start right in the center of the pan and just make one line going down, so that way you have two equal halves.

And now what we're gonna do is we're gonna make rows going straight down.

OK, so now we have the 8 rows total, and now we're gonna start at the corner of our pan.

I'm just sort of going on a diagonal.

So we get those beautiful diamond-cut desserts.

OK, so now we are going to use the sharp side of our paring knife, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna follow our score, our trace that we just made, and we're gonna-- we're not gonna sort of run our knife through it, because we don't want to mess up our beautiful baklawa that we just created.

We want to sort of like push the knife up and down.

We're gonna use our other hand to keep the layers down as well while we cut through the dessert.

Before it goes into the oven, I like to just drizzle a little bit more clarified butter and to sort of dip my pastry brush in and sort of drizzle it right on top.

We want a nice, beautiful, lightly golden brown color.

And this definitely helps us achieve that.

Ha ha ha!

And that's it.

We're gonna get it into our oven.

I have it preheated at 370 degrees.

It's gonna bake for approximately 40 to 45 minutes until it's nice and lightly golden brown, and then we're gonna be making my delicious phyllo dough cups that we're gonna fill with my Lebanese cream.

It's amazing.

So our baklawa is baking away, and in the meantime, we are gonna start our second sweet of the day, and I like to call it my "some kind of wonderful phyllo dough cups."

And I have the remaining 14 sheets of phyllo dough that have been covered with my damp and moist cloth, and it's very simple to make the phyllo dough cups at home, and I know that you guys are just gonna love this recipe, and it's a lot of fun to make it with kids, too.

So I'm gonna take our first sheet of phyllo dough, and we are going to lightly butter it with our clarified butter.

We still have some left over from our baklawa.

And I'm gonna take another sheet and layer this right on top.

So we're actually doing 4 sheets of phyllo dough to make our cups.

And now I'm just gonna take a small bowl, a circular bowl, and I'm gonna place it right on top, and then I'm gonna take my sharp small paring knife and I'm going to trace and cut around the small bowl to make a circular shape.

And then that's it, and then you have this beautiful circle just like so, and then we use our clarified butter and our pastry brush, and I have a cupcake or a muffin pan right over here, and then you just place the phyllo dough circle right in the center, just like that, OK, and we take a little bit more butter and just sort of lightly butter the edges.

And I like to put some right in the center, too, just like that.

How easy is that, right?

OK, so now I'm going to do another one, and for every 4 sheets of phyllo dough that we've layered together, we should be able to get 6 circles.

One more little dab of butter for good luck.

Good measure.

Ha ha ha!

OK, so now we're gonna get them into our oven along with our baklawa that is baking away.

These are only gonna bake for about 10 to 12 minutes tops, just until they're nice and lightly golden brown, and then we are gonna get started on making my sumptuous orange blossom syrup and our knefeh cream custard, because our baklawa is almost done.

I started our syrup for our seasonal sweets that signal the holiday season to me, and I've doubled our recipe because we have 3 sweets, so that means we need lots of syrup to go around to coat all of them.

So I started off with 6 cups of white granulated sugar.

To that, I added 3 cups of water, and the juice of one lemon, and I'm just sort of stirring all of the ingredients together so that the sugar dissolves in the water.

And then the lemon also helps the syrup from not crystallizing on you, so it's really important to add the juice of one lemon for double the recipe.

And if you want to make half of the recipe, if you're only doing one sweet, you would just take 3 cups of sugar with 1 1/2 cups of water and the juice of a half a lemon.

So while our syrup is boiling away, we need to start making our knefeh cream custard that's gonna be dolloped into our phyllo dough cups and that's also gonna be lusciously layered for our knefeh dream sweet and queen sweet of the Middle East and Lebanon.

So I have another stock pot here, and we are gonna start off with one gallon of heavy cream.

You can also use half-and-half if you like, and I'm also doubling the recipe because I need the cream for our phyllo dough cups, and I also need it for our knefeh sweet as well.

OK, so just like that, and now I'm gonna get our semolina, and you can see that it's this beautiful light golden color.

In Arabic, we call it smeed, and it's not to be confused with semolina flour.

It's semolina grain.

So we are going to add two cups of our semolina into our heavy cream just like that, and we need a little bit of sweetness to this, so we are going to add 1/3 of a cup of white granulated sugar.

OK, so now we're just taking a whisk and we're just sort of gonna incorporate and really dissolve the semolina, the smeed, and the sugar.

And we have our heat on high at this point.

And then once it starts to sort of come to a gentle boil, we're gonna lower our heat and then just sort of turn it into this nice, thick cream.

So our syrup has thickened, and we're just gonna check it one more time, and that's exactly where I want it.

It's nice and thick.

Just ready for our finishing touch, and we're using our orange blossom water essence.

We're gonna do about two tablespoons, because we have double the recipe of our syrup that we're making today for all 3 of our sweets.

And we're just going to simply stir it in just like so.

We're gonna turn off our heat, and that's it for our syrup, and as you can see, my knefeh cream custard has beautifully thickened up for us, so I'm just gonna turn off our heat immediately.

So now we are going to spoon them into our phyllo dough cups that we have right over here.

I took them out of the oven and I let them cool so that they could set.

I think I'm gonna go for this one.

Look at that.

Aren't they beautiful?

They're these nice, little phyllo dough cups.

So I'm just gonna spoon some of our cream while it's nice and hot right into our phyllo dough cups.

I have some tasty toppings.

Some of my favorites.

Just some whole unsalted pistachio nuts.

Just like that.

A couple tart dried cherries, too, which also look so festive, especially for the seasons, the holiday seasons-- Christmastime, Valentine's, all sort of special occasions.

And a little bit of my pistachio powder also.

And for a finishing touch, just a little bit of our orange blossom syrup, just like that.

OK, so that looks lovely.

I'm just gonna place it on our tiered stand that we have, just like that.

Doesn't that look fantastic?

It's really such a festive sweet for the seasons, and it's nice that everybody can get their own.

So I'm just gonna continue to fill up our phyllo dough cups.

Put our tasty toppings and our syrup to make our tiered sweet stand today.

It is time for our third sweet of Lebanese and Middle Eastern sweet treats, and this one happens to be, I think, and most people think, the sort of queen sweet in the Middle East, and it is simply called knefeh, and I have here before me our shredded phyllo dough.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna basically break this apart into two sections.

I'm just gonna simply place half the amount of the shredded phyllo dough in our double boiler, so in the steamer that's set over boiling water.

And then what you want to do also is you just sort of want to toss it a couple of times so it moistens evenly on all sides, and this is a little tip and trick that Mom and I came up with to make it easier and more delicious for a knefeh dream dessert, and any of our desserts, actually, that we're making with shredded phyllo dough.

Beautiful.

So that is just right, just take it right out of the steamer, and we're gonna put the other half in.

OK. Beautiful.

So I'm gonna turn off our heat and I'm going to remove the other half of our shredded phyllo dough.

Just like that.

All right.

We're gonna get this onto our board, and again, I'm just gonna loosen it up.

You can see that steam sort of rising.

So now I still have some of my clarified butter right over here, and I'm going to dip my pastry brush in and sort of drizzle some of the clarified butter right on top of the shredded phyllo dough.

And now using your hands, just sort of toss it together without tearing it apart, and let's get our casserole pan that we have over here, and I'm gonna take our clarified butter again and just lightly brush the bottom and also the side walls.

That looks beautiful.

All right.

So now we're gonna take half of the shredded phyllo dough and simply place it in the bottom, and then using the palm of our hands, we're gonna press it down.

You want to firmly press it down so it kind of comes together and holds for us.

And now we're gonna grab our knefeh cream that we made earlier for our phyllo dough cups, and we're just gonna simply pour this right on top of the shredded phyllo dough.

OK, so now using the back of your silicone spatula, just sort of spread it evenly so that it coats all of the shredded phyllo dough.

All right, so now we're just simply going to take the other half of the shredded phyllo dough, spread it evenly, going on top of our cream.

My brother Eddie especially loves this dessert, so, my mom and I always try to make this at Christmastime.

Ha ha ha!

Especially for him.

OK, so now I'm just gonna press it down into the cream.

And we're also gonna use a little bit more of our clarified butter.

It's really coming in handy today, so I'm glad that we clarified a lot of butter so we could have enough to go around for all of our sweets.

This is gonna help us achieve a nice golden brown color, too.

OK, so now we are going to get this into our oven.

It's gonna bake for at least 30 to 40 minutes, maybe even 45 minutes, until it's nice and golden brown.

[pop] Look at our beautiful baklawa.

It baked up beautifully for us.

And I keep on saying "beautiful" because it is.

It has this nice, light, golden brown color, and it really sort of fluffed up so nice for us.

So now I'm just generously syruping it with our orange blossom syrup.

The Lebanese kitchen smells so, so aromatic.

And this smell of the baklawa baking and the orange blossom water and the rosewater, it sort of signals the holiday season for me.

This is the aroma that I would smell in our home growing up as a young girl, with my mother baking these sweets away.

OK, so now we are going to release our beautiful baklawa from our tray.

Look at that.

This is a perfect piece of baklawa if I do say so myself.

Ha ha ha!

I'm just gonna get this last corner and then I'm gonna slice myself a lovely piece of this knefeh to treat myself, because I've made all of these wonderful sweets today that I'm sharing with you.

Whoo!

Look at that.

Can see that it's steaming, that cream inside.

Just absolutely amazing.

And I also have some fresh blackberries that I just sprinkled a little bit of granulated white sugar, and then a couple drops of our orange blossom water onto so that they could be infused with some delicious flavor.

Now what we've all been waiting for.

Gonna take a nice bite of our knefeh.

Yum.

Mm.

I am in heaven.

And you will be, too, when you make this knefeh at home for you and your family and your friends to enjoy.

I hope that you've enjoyed my seasonal sweets from Lebanon and the Middle East today.

I'm so happy that I could share them all with you.

So until we sweet-make again, I wish you and yours to always takloull bil' hanna, especially for the seasons.

Sending smiles.

[Blows kiss] Sweet-making, for me, is really special.

It's very different than savory cooking.

It's sort of serene and very peaceful for me.

I like to especially make my sweets in the evening hours.

I put some soft music on, sometimes have a glass of wine, and I just love the sort of layering of the phyllo dough, the brush strokes of the clarified butter.

I love how precise everything is, and I love that I can sort of compose these beautiful sweets that I get to share with my family and friends.

Announcer: "Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen, "Authentic Recipes for Fresh and Flavorful Mediterranean Home Cooking," is now available.

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To order a copy, call 1-800-PLAY-PBS or order online at shopPBS.org.

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"Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ [Middle Eastern music playing]