“NOTE 22. "Baḳláweh," from the Turkish "baḳláva," is a name given to a kind of pastry, which is generally thus prepared:--A paste made of fine flour with clarified butter is rolled thin, and laid upon a tray: upon this paste is then spread a composition of clarified butter and blanched almonds (and sometimes walnuts and currants) beaten small; and over this is put another layer of paste. Eight of these double layers of paste with the composition above mentioned between them are placed one upon another, making the whole about an inch thick. It is baked in an oven; cut into lozenge-shaped pieces, about three inches long, and two inches wide; and after it is thus cut, some honey or treacle is poured over.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
and add with cold water and one yolk; make into paste, roll in in six or seven times one pound of butter, flowring it each roll. This is good for any small thing. No. 2. Rub six pound of butter into fourteen pound of flour, eight eggs, add cold water, make a stiff paste. No. 3. To any quantity of flour, rub in three fourths of it's weight of butter, (twelve eggs to a peck) rub in one third or half, and roll in the rest. No. 4. Into two quarts flour (salted) and wet stiff with cold water roll in, in nine or ten times one and half pound of butter. No. 5. One pound flour, three fourths of a pound of butter, beat well. No. 6. To one pound of flour rub in one fourth of a pound of butter wet with three eggs and rolled in a half pound of butter.
Sources: The passage is from Unknown, The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nigh, tr. Lane, Edward William, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Simmons, American Cookery of 1796, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — teal cloth, lamp stamp.