Delicious Chocolate Honey Walnut Phyllo Log

I made a Bulgarian banitsa for Thanksgiving yesterday. Today, I made some super simple phyllo dough pastries with saffron-scrambled eggs, two cheeses, and pine nuts! I will post both recipes soon. This afternoon, my project was to use the remaining 12 phyllo sheets and a half bag of walnuts because their expiration date seemed eminent... My idea was to make some sort of walnut honey phyllo triangles, but I ended up making cinnamon walnut honey phyllo logs with chocolate and marshmallows in one half and nutmeg in the other (just in case adding either ingredient made it taste terrible!) It turned out rather well and seems very tasty! Here is what it looks like all finished!

Ingredients

- 2 cups finely-chopped walnuts (*optional to chop them while watching Ancient Aliens)

- 1 cup honey

- 1/2 tsp of cinnamon (and some more sprinkling of it too)

- 1/4 tsp salt (seemed like a good idea)

- nutmeg to sprinkle

- egg wash (one egg w/ splash of milk)

- melted butter 

                      

Here's what I did...

- Added honey, walnuts, cinnamon, and salt into a small saucepan and cooked for a few minutes on medium heat until it was a nice mixture. I ended up sprinkling some more cinnamon in the pot twice...

- Made egg wash and melted butter

- Buttered cookie sheet and placed one phyllo layer upon it

- Drizzled some butter over it and added another sheet

- Drizzled egg wash over this one

- Added 12 sheets, alternating between butter and egg wash. On top of sheets 5 and 9, I added a stripe of chocolate, some marshmallows (just on one side and just because it seemed interesting. At sheet 10, I added a healthy dusting of nutmeg and a drizzle of honey.

- Finally, I spread the walnut/honey mix from left to right across the middle of the sheets

- Next, I rolled it up into a log and drizzled egg wash and then some butter over the top.

- I added a glop of walnut mix on the top and a stripe of chocolate on one side.

- BAKE at 325 for 30 minutes (* possibly taking it out a few minutes early to add marshmallows so they can toast on the top, if you like that sort of thing...) The temp and time were averages of what I found via the internetz for honey walnut triangles or walnut rolls...

- End result = DELICIOUS and now I have a treat for the whole weekend!

Blackberry Buttermilk Pie with Cinnamon Raspberry Meringue

Several of my friends have asked for this recipe after I posted a photo of the pie on Facebook. It is truly YUMMY so go make it and adapt to your own tastes! This is my recipe, which I adapted from a buttermilk recipe long-forgotten. I'll be baking or cooking various old favorites of mine throughout my long, boring recovery from last Friday's hysterectomy. 

Final result = delicious pie and who doesn't want that?

PRE-HEAT

Pre-heat your oven to 350 for a cooking time of 45 minutes. 
* Be warned that your cooking time will vary according to your oven and the pie's viscosity and temp going in. 

INGREDIENTS for the pie

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup buttermilk

3/4 cup seedless blackberry jam (or 1/2 cup blackberry jam and 1/2 cup pureed blackberries) *You can sub ANY jam flavor here and add more or less, according to the strength you want

1/2 cup unsalted butter MELTED

1/4 cup flour

5 large egg yolks (keep the whites in another bowl for the meringue)

1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Dashes of salt

Pretty much any pie crust. I usually use one that's partially baked.

INGREDIENTS for the meringue

Egg whites (since you have 5, you'll have plenty of leftover meringue to bake some little meringues on the side, see last image.)

Sugar - I just add until the meringue looks and feels right.

Dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg

2 teaspoons of raspberry flavoring

A few blackberries or raspberries to top the pie itself (after it's baked!)

DIRECTIONS for deliciousness

Whisk together the buttermilk, sugar, blackberry jam, melted butter,  flour, vanilla, dash of salt, and egg yolks and have fun doing it.

Pour this lavender mess into your pie crust and try not to spill it.

Bake yonder gooey filling for 45 minutes OR until only the middle is wobbly.

Take out of hot oven and spread the meringue over the hot pie. Make sure to seal it by spreading it to the edges of the crust/filling line.

Put back in oven and bake fr another 10-20 minutes.

You don't have to add meringue at all. You could just bake it for 45-60 minutes and top with blackberries or whatever. 

Now, NO EATING! It's time to cool the pie for at least a few hours.

Enjoy and share!

Above are little raspberry cinnamon meringues that I made with the leftover meringue. The trick to baking them is a high temp for short time (to make them safe to eat) and then a long, slow bake so they're harder on the outside and chewy in the middle. Mine didn't come out completely right, but they were safe to eat and tasty :-) If you need help, THE GOOGLE is your friend. Making meringues.