Alex Morris in search of the best made-in-Newcastle baklava

And so the quest to find the city's best baklava was born.

Prior to this article I wasn't knowledgeable about baklava, but I'd never met one I didn't like. I thought it was a tasty Greek treat, sweet and sticky with nuts that I rarely turn down. I saw baklava all over town, especially at the takeaway kebab shops.

I asked myself: "Were they making it in house? How do you make it? What are its origins?"

I began my enquiry at Darby Street Kebabs, a shop whose baklava I have enjoyed for years. It's quite tasty and made in Sydney.

"Try Baba Yaga," someone said (it's on the other side of Darby Street). My friend and I enjoyed decadent baklavas full of crushed walnuts with pistachios sprinkled on top. It's made more in the traditional Greek style, the cafe's Turkish owner Oscar Kilic told me.

The Turkish style typically has more pistachios, but Novocastrians tend to be more familiar with the walnut style. Baba Yaga buy theirs from Sydney, and it's good.

At multiple restaurants and takeaway shops I was told the same thing: "We don't make it here."

You can buy tasty baklava all over this town at restaurants and even shops (Nina's IGA in Hamilton has quite a variety).

But most of the baklava in Newcastle I encountered was not actually made here.

I might add that plenty of restaurants personally know their baklava chefs in Sydney, and on more than one occasion I was told it was made by a little old lady who was like family and had been making it for decades.

The more I ate, the more I learnt more about the dessert. Countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe all make baklava, and many believe the sweet was perfected in the 15th century during the Ottoman Empire.

Depending on who you talk to and which country you are discussing, different rules apply regarding nuts, syrup and oil. I started noticing the different shapes you can bake baklava into as well.

Along with trying everyone's baklava I decided I would make it myself to see what all the fuss was about. I make my own cinnamon scrolls - surely it couldn't be harder than that. I discovered that baklava is not exactly a piece of cake to make.

I invited a friend over to make it with me, but I quickly realised that I couldn't even start until four hours after I'd purchased the filo pastry so that it would thaw.

Then, reading the recipe, I realised I would have to wait at least another four hours after I had baked the dough for the syrup to sufficiently soak into the pastry.

Hours later I struggled, attempting to paint one giant fragile piece of filo pastry after another with melted butter.

Honey was all over my stove; I was elbow deep in butter and out of my depth. I needed an expert.

I was at Civic Lunch Delights on Hunter Street enquiring about the origins of their baklava (also Sydney) when another customer overheard my questions. His name was Brennan, and he told me that I simply must try baklava from his friend Marian Thomas. She's Egyptian, he told me, and she makes incredible baklava.

Fast forward a few weeks and I went to Marian's house at Hamilton to soak up her knowledge. She told me baklava is one of the two main Egyptian desserts, the other one being basbusa, a semolina slice.

"The Egyptians invented everything," she jokes.

"Egypt is famous for baklava, particularly around Ramadan."

Marian has been baking baklava for the past four years, and she learned from Rita Dixon, who owns My Father's Table and teaches Lebanese cooking classes in the region.

Marian revealed some shortcuts, to make my baklava journey less tedious.

I watched her dole out massive spoonfuls of ghee (approximately 115 millilitres) into the measuring cup.

"It's kind of scary for people to make because it's so much butter," she says.

If you really want to, you can count the 20 sheets of pastry to line the pan. She doesn't worry too much about the pastry overlapping. She finds baklava to be a very forgiving dessert, measurement wise.

The first trick she taught me is to use Antoniou chilled filo pastry, which is ready to go straight from the fridge and doesn't require waiting for four hours.

The next tip is that rather than painstakingly painting each individual filo sheet with butter, you can line a pan with plain sheets of pastry and then soak it in melted ghee. This speeds up the process dramatically.

Instead of honey (more common in Greek recipes) she uses sugar, water, lemon and orange blossom oil which gives it such a beautiful delicate flavor. You mix the nuts with icing sugar and you don't have to toast them before you line the pastry with them, but you can if you like.

We had a blast cooking and eating and I made cinnamon rolls for her in exchange for her expertise. Our spirits, cholesterol and blood sugar were high that Monday morning.

I did a small taste test on the day and then returned the following day to fully appreciate the syrup soaked baklava.

"Never put it in the fridge, it will go soggy and the sugar already preserves it," she reminded me.

I didn't really have to worry about keeping them fresh anyway. They were divine. She gave me four pieces and I had devoured them all within 12 hours.

I was grateful to Marian for her time and expertise, giving me the context to appreciate the sweet's rich taste and history.

Below are four local places with different types of homemade baklava worth trying.

Limoo Cafe on Beaumont Street is an Iranian restaurant owned by Shervin Safaei and Sadaf Tootoonchi Moghaddam. Sadaf makes three different types of baklava from scratch in their kitchen. She makes the almond round spiral, the walnut square with rose petals and the traditional pistachio style (their best seller). They use sugar, water, saffron and rosewater for the syrup in the traditional Iranian style.

"I make them at the minimum twice a week," she says. "I love the pistachio; my husband is the walnut one."

Mustafa's has been around for 27 years. Mustafa Al-Mudafer and his wife and children make the baklava from scratch along with everything else in the shop. Originally from Iraq, Mustafa started out as a chemical engineer and then moved to the restaurant industry where he made quite a name for himself. He sells a variety of baklava options; some have more pistachios, some have more walnuts, and he also has a vegan baklava option. He also sells his own Arabian ice-cream and Turkish delight.

After eight years in Mayfield, Zaaki Espresso is well known and loved by locals. Penny Saris (Greek) and Anas Ezmigna (Jordanian) are the owners. Now that they have young children they don't make their own baklava anymore, but they do make their own baklava cheesecake and chocolate baklava cheesecake - a slightly less traditional take on the ancient dessert, and definitely worth the hype. (I'll have to go back to try the Turkish delight cheesecake.)

This cafe on Stewart Avenue sells $3 Yiaya's Baklava in the Greek style made by Lulu's mother, Phyllis. Phyllis was unavailable to chat, but her baklava is incredibly sticky, sweet and filling.