Make Phyllo Dough
Phyllo or Filo pastry is delicious, crispy and paper thin. The word phyllo is a Greek word meaning "leaf," and you can probably guess why. Phyllo is ideal for making savoury parcels, Greek style cheese pies, samosas and even spring rolls. You can buy it ready made but it's a lot more fun making it from scratch, even if it does take a while.
Contents
Ingredients
- 2 and 2/3 cups (270 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.5 g) salt
- 1 cup of water, minus 2 tablespoons (210 ml)
- 4 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for coating dough
- 1 teaspoon (5 mL) cider vinegar
Steps
Making the Dough
- In a mixer, combine flour and salt and combine thoroughly on a slow setting. Use a paddle attachment if possible.
- Combine water, oil, and vinegar together separately. Don't worry if they don't mix just quite yet. Add the water, oil, and vinegar mixture to the flour,.
- Keeping the paddle attachment mixing on low speed.
- Continue mixing with the paddle attachment until the dough gets soft, about 1 minute. Mix just long enough for all the ingredients to come together. Add more water if dough is too dry.
- Switch out the paddle attachment with a hook attachment and continue mixing for about 10 minutes. The hook attachment of the mixer will simulate kneading, which is essential for phyllo dough to develop good elasticity.
- If you don't have a stand mixer and wish to knead the dough by hand — God bless you — get ready to knead for approximately 20 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the mixer and continue to knead for 2 more minutes by hand. While kneading, pick the dough ball up and throw it down on the counter several times to help push out any trapped air.
- Use about 1 teaspoon of olive or vegetable oil to coat the entire dough.
- Once coated, set aside in a medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Wait for at least 30 minutes and as much as 2 hours for the dough to set. You'll get better results (i.e. the dough will be easier to work with) the longer you let is rest.
Rolling the Phyllo
- Cut the phyllo dough into roughly equal portions. Starting with nearly 3 cups of should give you 6 - 10 separate balls of dough. The bigger the ball to begin with, the larger the rolled sheets of phyllo will end up being.
- While you are rolling one piece of dough, remember to keep the other pieces of dough covered so that they do not dry out while you are rolling.
- Start rolling circular pieces of dough on a rolling pin or dowel. Dowels work great for making phyllo; their thin profiles make rolling very easy, and their length means that you can work on a large sheet of dough all at once. For the first couple of inches, roll the dough much like you would a pizza dough, trying to maintain a circular shape.
- While rolling, be sure to use ample flour or cornstarch. You pretty much can't over-flour the dough during the rolling phase.
- Continue rolling the dough on the pin or dowel by wrapping the dough around the dowel and rolling back and forth. Place the dowel slightly above the bottom of the dough. Wrap the dough around the top of the dowel so that part of the dowel is completely covered in dough. With both hands on either side of the dough, roll the dowel back and forth to thin out the dough.
- Unwrap the dough by rolling the dowel back towards you. Rotate the dough 90°, flour it lightly, and repeat the rolling process.
- Roll, rotating after each big back and forth, until the dough becomes translucent.
- Take the translucent dough into your hands and stretch apart very carefully to get an even thinner dough. Almost like working with a pizza, use both hands to very carefully stretch apart the sides of the dough, making sure to rotate the dough in your hands.
- This will create the thinnest possible dough for the amateur baker. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to get the dough as thin as you might in the store.
- Your dough will occasionally rip as you handle it and stretch it even farther apart. Don't worry about these small rips. As long as the piece of phyllo you put on top is without blemish, you'll never notice them in the final product.
- Place each finished sheet of phyllo on top of each other on a well-floured baking sheet. If you want your dough to be extra-crispy, consider brushing on either oil or melted butter between each layer. If you prefer your phyllo a little chewy, leave as is.
- Repeat until your 7 - 10 layers are fully stacked. You can increase the bulk of your phyllo by cutting the dough in half and stacking it on top. Dough can be kept frozen and saved for later use.
- Enjoy. Use your phyllo to make spanakopita, baklava, or even an apple pie with phyllo subbed in for pastry dough.
Tips
- Brush with melted butter when cooking to maintain its crisp quality.
- Great for Greek, Eastern European and Middle Eastern recipes (especially baklava).
Related Articles
- Make Rosewater Baklava
- Make Cinnamon Bagels
- Make an Apple Cream Tart
- Handle Fillo Pastry (Phyllo Dough)
