Old City Sweet Counter · Layered Nut Pastry

Baklava (Kashash Sweets)

Photo: Chitrapa / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The same century-old shop that makes Acre's most talked-about knafeh turns out about 22 different traditional sweets every morning, from pistachio and almond baklava to cashew and hot-chocolate versions.

Layers of paper-thin filo are brushed with butter, packed with chopped nuts, cut into diamonds or triangles, baked until golden, and soaked in sugar syrup. Old City sweet shops in Acre's market, led by the century-old Kashash Sweets, sell trays of it by the piece alongside their knafeh.

Why it's made this way: Acre's centuries-old role as an Ottoman port city left its Old City market with a concentration of traditional sweet shops, like the four-generation Kashash Sweets founded in 1915, still working from historic recipes and techniques.