The sweet pastry snack made from layers of filo dough, chopped nuts, and honey or syrup is baklava.
Baklava is assembled from many thin sheets of filo pastry, usually brushed with melted butter or oil. Chopped walnuts, pistachios, almonds, or other nuts are layered between the pastry sheets. After baking, the crisp pastry is soaked with a sweet syrup that may contain honey, lemon, rosewater, or orange-blossom water.
Its exact origin is disputed. Proposed influences include ancient Greek and Roman pastries, medieval Arabic sweets, and layered breads associated with Turkic Central Asia. The dessert reached something close to its modern form in the Ottoman culinary world and became closely associated with the kitchens of Topkapi Palace in Constantinople, now Istanbul.
Baklava is not the same as strudel, which generally uses a single paper-thin dough sheet wrapped around a filling, often apples. Kunafa uses shredded pastry and commonly includes cheese or cream, while halva is a dense confection rather than a layered baked pastry.