Baklava Bars

I made these for Thanksgiving and they were the BIGGEST hit. So delicious! You can use any nut you like. The recipe (I will post the original below with my modifications in parenthesis) called for walnuts, but I wanted to have a pecan dessert, so I used pecans...YUM!

Baklava Bars (courtesy of Betty Crocker)
(Printable Recipe)

Cookie base
1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 tsp grated lemon peel
1 egg

Filling
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (feel free to substitute any nut you like- I used pecans)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
8 frozen mini fillo shells (I used the whole package)

Glaze
1/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp butter or margarine, softened
1 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Spray bottom of 13 x 9 inch pan with cooking spray
2. In large bowl, stir cookie base ingredients until soft dough forms. Press dough into bottom of pan. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in medium bowl, stir nuts, granulated sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1 tsp cinnamon, and salt with fork until well mixed and crumbly.
4. Sprinkle nut mixture over partially baked crust. With hands, crumble frozen fillo shells evenly over nut mixture. Bake 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Meanwhile, in small microwavable bowl, combine 1/3 cup honey, 2 Tbsp butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Microwave uncovered on High for 1 minute or until bubbly. Stir in vanilla. Drizzle evenly over fillo. Cool completely (about 2 hours).
7. Optional- before serving, drizzle honey over bars, cut and serve. (I didn't use the extra honey).

I will definitley be making this again! It is so delicious. The entire pan was eaten in about 2-3 days.