Homemade Phyllo Pastry Recipes

Steps:

• Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl and add the water with oil.
• Stir until forms soft dough, then knead in the bowl about 10 minutes.
• Dough will feel sticky at first, but kneading, it should develop into a dough that becomes smooth and satiny.
• When well mixed and smooth, wrap pastry in plastic wrap and leave it to rest at room temperature about one hour.
• If not all the dough is being used right away, wrap the unused portion and keep chilled in fridge up to a week.
• Always bring to room temp before using.
• Divide the pastry into 12 equal portions, shaping them into smooth balls.
• Cover with a cloth, except the one you're working with.
• Take a ball of dough, and shape it into a square.
• Place it on a lightly floured surface, and roll into a 6 inch square using rolling pin.
• Dust again with flour.
• Take the dowel, and place on one end of the pastry, and roll neatly onto the dowel, pressing firmly as you do so.
• Keep hands on each side of the pastry.
• Unroll the pastry and dust the work surface and pastry with a little flour, and roll up again from opposite side as before, exerting pressure as you go.
• Unroll carefully.
• After second rolling, the pastry should be about 10x12 inches.
• Using the back of your hands, place them under the pastry and stretch gently, moving hands to keep it even, working toward the edges.
• The edges can be given a final stretch with the fingertips.
• You should wind up with a pastry that's 14x18 inches in size.
• Place on a cloth, cover with wax paper and fold the cloth over the top.
• Repeat the above process with remaining dough balls, laying each on top of the previous one with wax paper between them.
• Use soon after making as they'll go sour if you keep them too long.
• If desired, you can roll them out more thinly.
• Repeating the dowel rolling process more will result in a thinner square each time.
• Phyllo can be used like a puff pastry when thicker, or it's wonderful in baklawa, lamb pastries, or many other mid eastern sweets when rolled very thin.
• In Greece, they'll often use phyllo as a crust for certain types of pies, such as spinach.

Steps:

• Place 2 cups flour in a mixing bowl; make a well in the center. Drizzle in olive oil and add salt; add white wine vinegar and warm water. Mix until dough just comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, 1 or 2 minutes. Transfer dough ball to a lightly floured work surface.
• Knead until dough is smooth, using just enough flour to keep it from sticking to the work surface or your hands, 2 or 3 minutes. Continue to knead until dough is supple and elastic, about 5 more minutes. Wrap dough ball in plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature, 1 to 2 hours.
• Divide dough into 20 (20 gram) portions using a kitchen scale; roll each portion into a ball. Place on plate and cover with plastic wrap to prevent dough balls from drying out while you begin to roll them out. Work in batches of 5.
• Mix cornstarch and 2 tablespoons flour together in a bowl. Dust a work surface and the first dough ball with the cornstarch mixture. Flatten out the dough ball and roll out into a circle, about 5 inches in diameter. Dust again with cornstarch mixture. Set circle to one side. Roll out 4 more dough balls to about the same diameter and stack them on the first one, dusting each layer with more of the cornstarch mixture to keep them from sticking together.
• When you have 5 circles, roll out the stack to a larger circle about double in size, turning as you go to maintain a round shape. Separate each layer and lay out the circles. Re-apply more cornstarch mixture where needed and restack them. Roll again until the 5-layer stack is paper thin, about 10 to 12 inches in diameter. Place on a sheet of parchment paper; top with another piece of parchment. Gently roll up the dough; wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate.
• Repeat with the remaining 15 balls of dough in batches of 5.

Steps:

• Bring milk to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in farina and reduce heat. Whisk vigorously over very low heat until mixture is smooth, thick, and detaches from the bottom of the pan, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool, about 15 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a muffin pan.
• Stir egg and honey into the cooled farina and whisk until smooth. Add walnuts, apricots, orange extract, and orange peel. Stir well to combine.
• Work with 1 phyllo sheet at a time, covering the rest with a tea towel so they won't dry out. Fold phyllo sheet in half widthwise, then cut it in half widthwise with scissors. Place each of the phyllo pieces in a muffin cup and gently press down so it fills the cup and sits on the bottom. Proceed the same way with the rest of the phyllo sheets.
• Distribute the filling among the muffin cups. Pinch the phyllo tops together with your fingertips to seal. Drizzle tops with melted butter.
• Bake in the preheated oven until tops start to brown, about 15 minutes. Use a dinner knife to loosen pastries out of the muffin cups and transfer to a baking sheet. Continue baking until evenly browned, 10 to 15 minutes more.
• Serve lukewarm or at room temperature.

Steps:

• Sift flour and salt into a bowl.
• Gradually add water, stirring to make a stiff dough.
• Turn onto a pastry board. Place the oil in a bowl and spread a little of it on the palms of your hands. Knead the dough with a folding and turning motion, adding more oil to your hands when dough begins to stick. Continue until you have a smooth, elastic ball of dough and the oil is nearly all used.
• Then roll the ball of dough in the remaining oil to cover all sides, place a clean cloth over the bowl, and allow the dough to rest for two hours or more in a warm place away from drafts. A barely warm oven is satisfactory.
• Separate 1/4 of the dough and roll to 1/4 inch thickness on a pastry board rubbed with cornstarch. Cover with a clean cloth and let it rest for 10 minutes.
• Cover a table (cardtable or larger) with a smooth cloth and carefully lift dough onto it. Put your hands under the dough, palms down and gently stretch and pull the dough with the backs of your hands, working your way around the table, until the dough is as thin as tissue paper. Do not worry if it hangs down around the edges of the table, or if some holes appear, especially around the edges. Cut off the thicker edge and save the scraps.
• The phyllo is now ready to be cut into pieces with scissors if you wish to use it moist. If you prefer dry phyllo, allow it to sand until dry, about 10 minutes, then cut into desired sizes.
• The scraps of dough can be put into a moist bowl and kneaded and rolled again.
• When using phyllo dough, spray the sheets with olive oil or melted butter from a spritzer bottle. It's a fast, easy way to apply the fat in a very thin layer.

Steps:

• Set oven at 350 deg F/180 deg Celsius, or 325 F/160 C if you have a convenction oven.
• Grease 6 holes of a muffin tin.It's easiest to use every alternate muffin hole because you have to press in the phyllo pastry.
• Open and drain the the escargots. Open the phyllo pastry, and cover with a well-wrung-out clean, damp kitchen cloth to prevent it drying out.
• If your olive oil has a stopper which makes it come out in a thin stream, just drizzle across the top phyllo sheet, then brush that evenly all over with a pastry brush. (Or put olive oil in a bowl and brush over).
• Put the phyllo sheet on a wooden board or on your clean counter. Brush 3 more phyllo sheets with olive oil, and put them, one after the other, carefully on top of each other.
• The phyllo I used could then easily be divided into 6 parts and carefully cut through. Put the 4-layer phyllo pastry rectangles in 6 muffin holes, patting them in with your fingers.
• Feta, where I am, usually comes in 2-ounce rounds in brine. Pat them dry with kitchen paper, and break up the feta in large bits. Put 1 ounce in each "nest" of phyllo. (Or see directions for camembert below).
• Put 5 escargots on top of the feta chunks. Add the walnuts, if using.
• Add about 1 heaped teaspoon finely chopped parsley to each filling.
• Melt the butter gently, adding the garlic and pepper, stir to mix.
• Add about 1 - 1 1/2 teaspoon of this butter mixture to each filling.
• Carefully fold the phyllo pastry over the filling. The easiest way is to tuck in the short bits first, then fold the longest bit over the rest, and fasten with a toothpick.
• Brush every little bundle with more olive oil, or melted butter.
• Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until the pastry is golden.
• They should come out easily, but be careful because the phyllo is brittle when baked. Garnish to your taste.
• * Added later: If you have a small round bowl, you could cut out rounds and fit that into the muffin pan hollows by pressing them in gently. But cut out enough phyllo to cover the filling.
• * I have used Camembert cheese plus walnuts, instead of the feta, and found that even more delicious.