Baklava with pecans, orange and sugar syrup

A twist on traditional baklava with the fresh sweet notes of orange. The baklava can be made about 3 days in advance; store covered at room temperature.

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 130 degrees.
2. Bring the honey, cinnamon sticks, 200 grams of sugar and 225 milliliters of water to a boil in the saucepan over medium heat. Keep stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Let this reduce until you have about 150 milliliters left over a medium heat source. This takes about 15-18 minutes. Pour this into a bowl, add the bourbon if desired and let cool.
3. Place the pecans on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 13-15 minutes; let cool.
4. Put the nuts together with ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of orange zest, the rest of the sugar in the food processor and make a coarsely chopped mixture.
5. Place a stack of phyllo pastry sheets on the counter; cover the rest with a damp tea towel to prevent drying out. Take the base of the springform pan and cut or snip the sheets into the shape of the springform pan. Put these back under the tea towel and cut or snip out the rest.
6. Assemble the springform pan. Grease the pan with melted butter and place a sheet of phyllo pastry on the bottom; brush it with butter. Repeat this with phyllo pastry until you have 5 sheets stacked together. Spread 1/5 of the nut/orange mixture over this. Repeat the layer with phyllo pastry and the nut mixture. Finish with the last sheet generously brushed with butter.
7. For effect, you can cut a beautiful quadrant pattern into the top layers with a sharp knife. Or simply make a diamond pattern. Place the springform pan on a baking sheet with slightly higher edges and bake the baklava for about 45 minutes until done. Spoon the cooled syrup over the hot baklava in 4 batches. Let it cool in the pan and decorate with curls of orange peel if desired.