Woohoo!  We are finally back to doing the Daring Bakers challenges.  I have to admit, I’ve missed it.  It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut in the dessert arena.  I have my go to recipes.  The ones that I know will always turn out and that I can whip up in no time for any last minute dinners, birthdays or cookie/cupcake/sugar cravings. Delicious? Of course. But sometimes you just need to step out of your comfort zone and try something new (or sometimes something you’ve never even heard of).  Enter Daring Bakers.  Needless to say, I am excited to be back and game for some challenges.  And as luck would have it, this month was perfect in that regard –  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 had never even heard of Nazook.  But one look at the recipe and pictures and I knew it would probably be something I would enjoy.  The recipe wasn’t too difficult, other than my unwarranted stress about the consistency of the dough (it turned out fine).  One thing I will be adding when I make these again (and I will be), is a little bit of salt to the dough.  I like a little salt in my baked goods and I would have added it had a noticed earlier that it was absent from the recipe.  But all in all delicious, especially when eaten with some salted butter.  Yes, I may have put more butter on a butter-based pastry filled with a butter/sugar mixture.  I’m strange.  And I like butter.

Thanks to Jason for the great challenge.  It’s great to be back!  As always, the recipe can be found at The Daring Kitchen