Daring Bakers: Armenian Nazook

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

I am not sure if I have ever even had Armenian food but for this challenge we got to choose to make one or both of these Armenian sweets.  I would have loved to do both but I have been a little busy lately so I chose to go with the Nazook - it looked good and had a cool name!  The recipe is Jason's Aunt Aida's recipe and he even shared a video of her demonstrating how to prepare the Nazook.

This was real easy to put together.  It is a yeast dough but it never really needs to rise much.  You can put the dough together the night before then it is a snap to put it all together the next day.  The recipe says almost anything goes for fillings - but I chose to just stick with the vanilla filling in the recipe.

I made this for a little appetizer for my Easter dinner.  Kind of a strange appetizer but it was a big hit - everyone loved it.  Kind of crunchy and soft at the same time, and just the right amount of sweet.  Would definitely make this again and maybe be adventurous and try something different for the filling next time.

If you would like to try out the Nazook or the Nutmeg Cake come check out the recipes in the Daring Kitchen Recipe Archive.