This is the time of year that I usually start this, here's the recipe, along with notations I added the first time I made it:

Baklava

Ingredients --
Crust:
1 lb phyllo dough (available in the frozen section of most markets)
3/4 lb of *unsalted* butter - melted

Filling:
1/2 lb of ground nuts (Pistachio for the more Turkish/Armenian style, but walnut is also very traditional.)
2-3 Tbs sugar
3/4 Tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 Tsp ground cloves (I only had whole cloves on hand, ground them w/ mortar and pestle)
some (1/4-1/2 Tsp) grated nutmeg (just grated a small amount, didn't bother measuring)

Syrup:
1-1/2 c sugar
1-1/2 c water
1/2 c honey
2 tsp lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick

Thaw your phyllo, overnight in the fridge or 4-5 hours on the counter. If you don't thaw it fully, it'll get all cracked and torn when you unroll it (this happened to me, impatience ). It's not a big deal, as the method I use doesn't involve whole sheets, but.....
Preheat the oven to 350, and put a little butter melting pot over the oven vent to melt your 3 sticks of butter gently.

The first step in the actual production is make the syrup. Mix together the water, sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon stick in an acid-resistant pot, and start to heat over medium heat. As it warms up, add in the honey. Cook with stirring until it starts bubbling and all the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool.


Mix the ground nuts with a couple/few tablespoons of sugar and the dry spices. Make sure they are all mixed well together.


Now comes the really time-consuming part of the process...assembly.

Unwrap the phyllo dough onto a smooth surface. Cover it w/ plastic wrap and an ever-so-slightly-damp towel. You don't want it to dry out and become brittle, nor do you want it to get soggy and stick together, it's a delicate balance.

For me, I found my best results were obatined from doing rolls, so...remove a sheet of phyllo from the pile and cut it into thirds lengthwise. Take one strip and start laying it down on a smooth surface. With a brush, thoroughly coat about a third of it with butter, fold over the next third, coat with butter again, fold over the last third, and brush with butter. This way you have a section of phyllo that is three layers thick. Continue this process with the other two strips from that sheet. In the end here you will have a stack of phyllo that is 9 layers thick, 1/3 the width of the full sheet, and 1/3 the length. It's not a thick stack, as each sheet is paper thin, but you get the idea. Near one end, put a line of a few teaspons of nut filling, going the length of that end, and roll it up into something resembling a thin sushi roll. Lay the roll onto a baking sheet, and cut it into reasonable lengths for easy to eat pieces. (It's easier to do this before baking, as the dough gets brittle and flaky during baking.) Fill up your baking sheet with these rolls.


Bake in the oven at 350 for ~25-30 minutes, or until they start to turn golden. Pull the sheet out, and while the pieces are still hot, use tongs to dunk each one in the pot of syrup for 10-15 seconds.


I think I spent (all told) about 4 hours working in the kitchen on this, as I'd not done it in a long time, and I tried a number of different construction methods to see what would work best for me. I used up all my filling, and almost all of the butter, and only had 2 leaves of phyllo left, so I think these proportions work pretty well.