Almond Kataifi

Preheat the oven to 350F.

First you make the filling by stirring together the coarsely chopped almonds (I used a mini food processor) with 3 tablespoons each honey and agave. You want it to end up all coated and stuck together as a big blob. Depending on how chop-crazy you go, you may need a little more of the sweet stuff.

Then melt the butter and paint up your pan (this recipe is enough to use up about 1/3 box of kataifi, and should fit in an 8×10 pan). If you haven’t been using pastry brushes to grease your pans all this time, it is time to take the plunge. It’s wonderful.

Then open that box! Kataifi’s other name is shredded wheat, but it comes as one very long damp rope in a plastic bag. You want to use about a 12-inch length at a time (just rip it), and then you separate that into 1-1 1/2 inch sections. I like to do about 5 or so at a time (as many as the work surface permits) because too few and you will be there forever, but the kataifi will dry out if it sits out for long so you want to keep it in the bag until the last second. Take a spoon and scoop about a small grape-sized amount of filling on the end of one section, then roll it up! There is no special technique about this part except that you want the filling covered. Dab the completed roll with butter and place in the pan. Keep going until you’re done, then put ‘em in the oven.

While they are baking, you want to make the syrup. Put the water, remaining 2 tablespoons each of honey and agave, the brown sugar, and the zest of your lemon in a small pot. Bring to a boil and let it roll for about 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and add the juice from the lemon.

Bake until the tops are brown. How brown is really a matter of personal preference, but I like mine wheat-bread brown. When you take them out and while they are still hot, pour the syrup over them.

You HAVE to let them cool, so instead of drooling over the pan, now is a good time to make the topping. I hope ya’ll know how to whip cream. When it gets time to eat, you want to serve an almost 1-to-1 ratio of whipped cream to kataifi. As DH’s imaginary girlfriend would say, “Yum-o!”