Alright, Baklava is one of those food that’s always good. Even when it’s bad… it’s still pretty good. It’s hard to mess up an ancient formula that boils down to pastry, syrup and nuts.
Still, some baklava is better than others. Ask a food snob or an addict (me): they’ll tell you that honey and butter and freshness are all attributes that make a huge difference in baklava.
So consider Glad Annie’s Baklava. It’s made locally, with local honey and Amish butter. It sounds pretty fancy, but it’s worth exploring whether those sorts of things make any difference to the average sweet tooth. In other words, is it a difference that makes a difference?
Samples of Glad Annie’s and a regular competitor were collected one weekend afternoon. Right away, tasters could tell that the baklava samples came from different places. The conventional version was tall and poofy. Annie’s was a shorter, more compact stack.
Of course, shorter and more compact doesn’t necessarily mean “better” – just different.
What says “better” is when the pastry explodes with honey in every bite. Glad Annie’s short stack did that: lots of honey flavor -lots of flavor, generally speaking. Every layer was soaked in a buttery honey syrup. It explains the shortness; all that weight holds things down. There was also at least two dense layers of finely chopped nuts inside. The pastry delivered a concentrated rush of goodness.
Of course, the “other” baklava wasn’t bad, there is no “bad” baklava. It was sweet and flaky -but with less syrup and less pronounced flavors. Even though the tasters loved it less, they ate it all anyway.
The tasters pronounced Glad Annie’s as the bake-off victor. It turns out that all that honey and local stuff is appreciated by the average palate. It’s a difference that does make a difference
Glad Annie’s is sold at The Hills Market and at local restaurants.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/gladanniebaklava.