Make pastry and stuffing in the same way. Roll pastry into 1-3mm-thick layers and then place them on a buttered oven sheet. Butter the surface of another sheet, and add another pastry layer. In between, put almond stuffing of about 4 to 5mm thickness, and then cover with another pastry layer. Gyandja’s Pahklava consists of 23 layers: 18 layers of pastry and 8 layers of almond stuffing. Before baking, cut into diamond-shaped pieces and smear with egg. Bake the Pakhlava at 180-200 Celsius for 30 to 35 minutes in the following two steps:

In 15-21 minutes take out of oven and pour syrup on it. Then put it into the oven again and bake until it’s ready. Cool the baked Pakhlava on the same oven sheets.

As you can see, the name of this sweet is "Genge’s Pakhlava". Genge is one of our beautiful places. It is famous with its sweets. This dessert is connected with out national holiday. The name of this holiday is Novruz .I love this holiday. It is on the 20th of March. The whole year I wait for this holiday, because of this wonderful dessert. My mother cooks many sweets: Shakerbura, Pakhlava, Gogal and so on.But now let me tell you about Pakhlava. I like it very much. It is so delicious; you can’t imagine! After cooking, my mother puts it near the window, to help it cool. But I can’t help myself - when my mother leaves me alone, I eat it. They say it is more delicious when it is cold, but I like to eat it hot. I’d like to send it to you, because if don’t eat it you can’t feel the taste.

Soak 500g of lime in water, at 3 to 1 ratio, and let it settle for 3 to 4 hours. Drain transparent water from the surface and screen through some gauze.

I want to tell you about my favorite jam. Not everyone knows how to cook it. By the way, I must say that cooking is hard.

Take ripe walnuts with soft shells, no more than 24mm in diameter. Skin the walnuts, pour cold water on them and soak for 3 days, changing the water 2 to 3 times a day. Then soak in lime water for 2 to 3 days, stirring 4 to 5 times a day. Rinse, puncture the mixture using a needle, in several spots and soak in cold water for 3 days, changing the water 2-3 times a day. Then blanch the walnuts in boiling water for 20 to 25 minutes. Pour hot syrup on, and boil 2 to 3 times within 4-6 hour intervals in between. Add citric acid, clove or cardamom. To mature the jam, keep the mixture for a minimum of 20 days.

I like this jam very much. It makes your body strong. There is nut-oil, which helps men to be young and the minerals are very useful. That’s why the preparation is difficult, but my granny cooks it and sends it to me every year. While my granny is cooking it I like to look at her .I follow her cooking steps .I think it is not easy to cook walnut jam. In my childhood, when I first ate it, it didn’t seem tasty. But then I found it to be very delicious. Now it is my favorite jam.

Mix and stir the butter, sugar powder, salt and egg yolk. Mix the soda with the sour cream, add it to the basic mass and stir again. Then add flour and make a pastry. Divide the pastry mass into two halves and roll it into 6-8 mm thick layers. Bake on the griddle in the oven at 250° for 10 to 13 minutes. After cooling, apply butter cream on the first layer and cover the second layer. Apply a thin layer of butter cream on the top of the tart. Make a Pomadka Tower, put it on the top and decorate with white cream. Sprinkle with fine crushed nuts.

Beat up whites until volume increases 4 to 5 times. When the mass becomes too light, add vanilla and sugar powder. To make the Butter Cream; beat up the butter with sugar powder, then add the condensed milk, cacao, vanilla and beat up it all up again ‘till it’s a light mass.

I like this cake. While eating it I remember one incident. There are many legends. They are very interesting. I’d like to tell you one of them. My grandmother told it to me, when I was a child, and I’m happy that I can share it with you, dear students. There is a legend about our "Maiden Tower".

Once upon a time there lived a King. He had a daughter. One day, this girl fell in love with a poor boy. But this marriage was impossible because of the King. He did not allow his daughter to marry the poor boy. So, in order to keep his daughter away, he built a tower and brought his daughter there. It was a very tall tower. Once she was in the top of the tower she suddenly saw that her sweetheart had approached the tower and died.

He had been beaten by her father. The poor girl couldn’t bear this suffering and threw herself off the tower.

The vanilla bean is a fruit from a species of orchid from the tropical Americas used to add flavor to chocolate by the Aztecs. These beans are cultivated by first picking the pods from fully matured flowers, immediately dipping them in boiling water (to stop it from growing), curing them in the sun, and finally drying for 4-6 months so that the beans can ferment and develop their aromatic flavor.

I'd like to tell you about one of our national sweets. It is one of our traditional sweets. It is cooked differently, in different regions. I am about to tell you about Baku's Gurabeaux. It is very delicious; it is my favorite sweet!

Grind butter with sugar powder and add the egg white. Then mix, add flour and knead the pastry. Split and shape pastry into 20-28g flowers. Decorate the flower-shaped pieces in the centre with the stuffing, which is made from the fruit paste and sugar powder (you should use about 2 to 2.5g of stuffing per piece). Bake at 250-270 degrees Celsius for 9 to 11 minutes. Bonne appetite!

I want to tell you about our holiday. Why? Because I remember the Curabeaux, on this holiday, during my childhood. There are many national holidays in Azerbaijan. They are:The Army day, on the 28th of May and Novruz, which is a spring holiday, when people begin to work in the fields.

They cultivate cotton, grapes, vegetables and fruit. Swallows and nightingales come home from hot countries. They sing songs in the gardens and forests. There are many violets, roses and tulips in our garden, too. Novruz is our national holy day. Our people celebrate Novruz on the 20th of March. Novruz is a holiday for Moslems, who celebrate this day in different countries. We have many national meals, but on this day our people cook pilaf and dolma. Pilaff is our national meal. We cook gogal, shekerbura, pahlava and gurabiye too. In the villages people make fires on Novruz. They dance and jump on the fire! Then they welcome spring. They say to their relatives, friend and parents, "Happy spring holiday! Happy Novruz!" We may celebrate this holiday at school too, telling poems and signing songs about spring.

Hello friends! I want to tell you about a sweet called Nasuk. We need the following ingredients:

Make a yeast dough from 520g of flour, 90g of butter and salt. To make the stuffing, take 70g of butter, add the sugar powder and saffron infusion and then mix and stir thoroughly. Then add 140g of flour and stir continuously to obtain a uniform mass. Roll the dough into 3-5 mm thick right-angled layers; smear it with the left-over butter and put several layers on top of each other, to produce puff pastry.

Put the stuffing in the middle, fold the edge, and join them in the middle and roll out again until it’s between 10 and 12 mm thick. Place stuffed pastry on metal sheets and smear the top of the pastry with egg yolk. Make a stripe-like pattern by using a fork and bake at 200-220 degrees Celsius for 25 to 30 minutes. Enjoy!

How do you do? My name is Zakir. I want to tell you about one of Azerbaijan’s desserts, called "Sweet Nasuk". I like sweets very much. Azerbaijani sweets are dear to me and one of my favorite sweets is Nasuk. Most people cannot make this dessert like I want it to be. But I have a grandmother, who lives in Shamkir, and only she can make it like I want it to taste! I help my grandmother to make this. It has a good smell when she cooks it.

When you fry it, it becomes very delicious. It is cooked in a beautiful region of Azerbaijan, called Garabag. Maybe I like this dessert because I always want to see Garabag. But Armenia occupied our land; that is why I can’t see this region. They don’t make this sweet in the oven, but in the ‘soot’. When we cook it in the soot it becomes very tasty. It may be eaten with tea or coffee. I hope that land will be returned to us and that I will eat this sweet in Garabag. And I can invite you all to Garabag. Amen!

To make sponge pastry, mix eggs with sugar powder and heat up for between 45-50 minutes. Then add flour, starch and knead the mixture. Place paper on a round griddle, put the pastry on it and bake it in the oven between 200 and 220C for 35 to 40 minutes. Leave sponge cake in a cool place for 10-12 hours. Cut sponge cake in two layers, saturate both with syrup and smear with cream. Decorate the tart top with cream and shapes made off egg white cream as well as chocolate figures.

Beat the whites ‘till volume increases 4-5 times. When the mass becomes light, add vanilla and sugar powder.

To make butter cream: beat butter with sugar powder, then add condensed milk, cacao, vanilla and beat again until it is a very light mass. To make the syrup, stir sugar into the water, bring to a boil and let it cool. Then add some brandy.

The history of "Goy- Gol" Lake. I know this Lake’s history and I am happy that I have chance to tell it to you. Whenever I eat it, I must tell of this event. Goy-Gol is a little mountain lake and it’s near the city Genge. It is at the bottom of the Kepez Mountains. They say it is Azeri pearl. It has a very interesting history. In the year 1199 an earthquake happened in the Genge River. A lake appeared, surrounded by mountains. While eating this tart I always remember that earthquake which created such beauty. Now "Goy-Gol" attracts many guests and tourists.

*SUMAC is crushed sour peals of the wild bush fruit, Rhus, and it is used as seasoning in meat dishes.

De-bone the mutton. Boil chestnuts in water, separately. In autumn, add 30g of guanaco per helping. Serve peeled onions and sumac powder separately. It’s not cooked easily. While cooking it takes my grandmother hours.

The variety of Azerbaijan shows itself in our food. Pity is eaten in two parts: the first part is known as a "water meal", it’s like a watery soup, followed by the second part which is the peas, meat and potatoes that were cooked in the water. We don’t use tomato-paste in watery meals. In summer we use fresh tomato, but in winter we use different spices. I like Pity. I was born in Sheky, one of the regions in Azerbaijan. The way this meal is cooked is delicious! They say in the 19th and20th Centuries there lived a master cooker by the name of Xoruzoglu. Many people came to him because of his ‘Pity’.

In our house, my grandma cooks the ‘Pity’. When she cooks it, it has a special taste. That is why I like ‘Pity’ very much. When I want to eat ‘Pity’ I ask my grandma to cook it. My grandma cooks ‘Pity’ for me with great pleasure. I must say that it is not easy to cook it. Not everyone can cook ‘Pity’, because it has a special recipe.