Filo dough is the thinnest layers of unsweetened yeast-free semi-finished product, rolled out to a translucent state. It “came” to us from Greece, where it is used as the basis for the preparation of Mediterranean sweets. We have a similar dough called exhaust, because, ultimately, it is stretched by hand. But you can cook it in another way. How? Learn from article material.

How to make filo dough with your own hands

We’ll reveal the secret of how to roll the filo dough into the finest sheets with the least effort.

What does that require:

  • sift into a deep bowl one and a half glasses of flour, along with eight grams of baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt;
  • make a depression in the hill;
  • to break an egg into a hole and slightly knead it with your hands;
  • add two-thirds cup of milk and a quarter of a glass of refined oil.

Mix liquid foods with flour with your hands. Knead sticky and very soft dough.

It will stick strongly to your hands, but you no longer need to add flour to it, otherwise it will not work to roll out the dough as thinly as you like.

It is more convenient to knead the semi-finished product on a smooth countertop. Sticky pieces can be collected using a scraper. After 7 - 10 minutes of kneading, the dough should still be soft, but already will not be so sticky.

Roll a piece into a ball. Remove in a bowl dusted with flour and cover with cling film. Within 30 minutes the dough will rest. During this time, gluten will gain the necessary properties.

Pull the ball into a short “sausage” and divide the piece into 6 equal parts and give each one a rounded shape. We remove the pieces under the film so that they do not wind up.

We proceed to the most important stage - rolling out the dough.

So, how to cook filo dough:

  1. Prepare a mixture of corn starch and flour. Take 150 g of the first, half as much as the second. We will pour layers with this mixture so that they do not stick together.
  2. Roll the first ball into a not-so-thin layer with a thickness of about 3 mm and set aside, abundantly powdering with starch mixture.
  3. In the same way, roll the next ball and lay the second layer on top of the first.
  4. Roll out the remaining pieces, stack all the layers in a stack, but we will sprinkle each layer abundantly with flour and starch.
  5. Move the stack closer to you and roll it out as thin as possible, you should get a rectangle about 40 × 45 cm in size.

Now you can separate the test layers from each other. Excess flour and starch should be brushed off with a brush.

Filo dough dries very quickly. While you are working with one sheet, cover the others with a damp towel or cling film.

Filo apple strudel

Strudel is a traditional Austrian dessert in the form of a roll, which is prepared from thin layers of dough wrapped around all kinds of toppings.

Strudel with apples is a classic. To prepare the most delicious delicacies, you need three sheets of filo dough.

Make a stuffing. Take:

  • three fragrant apples;
  • half a glass of sugar and raisins;
  • a whole glass of walnuts;
  • a teaspoon of cinnamon and three tablespoons of breadcrumbs;
  • a quarter packet of butter.

The oil needs to be heated and melted in a water bath. Dice apples. Grind the nuts with a blender. Soak raisins for 10 minutes in boiling water, drain the water.

We form a pie:

  1. We coat the dough sheets with oil and put them on top of each other.
  2. Mix all the components of the filling.
  3. We spread apples with raisins and crackers “sausage” along the smaller side of the formation, 6-7 cm backward from both edges.
  4. We throw the edges of the dough on the filling, roll the cake roll and coat with melted butter.

We send the dessert to the oven for half an hour to bake at 180ºС.

Baklava recipe step by step

Traditional baklava can be cooked with honey or sugar. We will share the recipe in syrup. Such a treat is less cloying. Filo pastry recipes will appeal to those who like not-so-sweet desserts.

Cooking products:

  • 12 sheets of thin dough;
  • half a packet of butter;
  • a cup of walnuts;
  • for syrup - 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of water, half a lemon.

Melt the butter in the microwave. Crush the nuts with a rolling pin, leaving a handful of whole halves for decoration.

Stages of making dessert;

  1. We put six layers of dough on top of each other on a baking sheet, each one is liberally coated with oil.
  2. Put crushed nuts on top of the dough.
  3. We cover them with six sheets of dough, each of which is also oiled.
  4. We make cuts with a sharp knife, dividing the dessert into rhombuses.
  5. We decorate the slices with halves of a walnut and remove the dessert in the oven preheated to 180 ° C for 40 minutes.

While the baklava is baking, prepare syrup. Boil sugar with water over high heat for 20 minutes. Dilute the resulting composition with lemon juice and leave it on the stove for another 5 - 7 minutes.

Pour the finished dessert with sweet liquid so that it gets into all the slots. Take out the baklava from the pan in a few hours, when it is completely saturated with sugar syrup.

Cooking meat pies

In Turkey, fillet pastry pies with meat are called berek. Juicy stuffing is prepared from a mutton scapula. The proportions for this dish are compiled arbitrarily.

The meat is ground into minced meat. Fry in a skillet until cooked, along with onions and spices for lamb.

Filo dough is very thin, it is baked quickly, so raw foods are never wrapped in it.

The filo sheet folds three times so that a long “track” is obtained. A bit of filling is laid out on the edge.The dough rises for one corner, drags it to the minced meat. It develops further according to the same principle so that as a result a triangular pie is obtained.

Pastry from the filo dough is greased with ghee, sprinkled with sesame seeds and reaches the condition in the oven at 170 ° C in 30 minutes.

Filo pastry pie with cheese

For a cheese pie, you need 400 g of dough.

Filling:

  • 700 g of feta cheese;
  • mug of sour cream;
  • three eggs;
  • a bunch of greenery.

Crumble cheese, chop greens, mix everything with sour cream and beaten eggs.

The cake is laid out in layers: 2 sheets of dough - filling, 2 sheets of dough - filling and so on. Before smearing the cheese, the dough is greased with olive oil.

The top sheets are covered with a beaten egg. The cake is baked at 180 ° C for 35 minutes.

Tartlets with crab meat

We will make the filling for the baskets from crab sticks. But if you have the opportunity to buy real crab meat - cook with it.

Products:

  • pack of sticks;
  • cream cheese - a can of about 70 g;
  • a spoonful of mayonnaise;
  • greens to taste.

The sticks are frozen in the freezer. Then let them thaw a little, rub on the track and mix with cheese, mayonnaise and herbs.

In the cupcake molds we put the squares of the filo dough, slightly shifting them relative to each other to get something like a flower. Each basket will require 3-4 layers. Sprinkle all the sheets with olive oil and put a little filling in the middle.

Bake servings in a preheated oven until lightly browned.

Kulebyaka with salmon and rice

All the ingredients for the fish pie must be prepared in advance. We do not indicate proportions; they can be taken arbitrarily.

For the filling you will need: salmon, chicken eggs, herbs, rice porridge. You can bake the whole fish or fillet in the oven or boil it in water, and then take apart and remove all the bones.

Kulebyak better cook in a deep bowl.

  1. At the bottom, lay out 3 sheets of dough. All layers should be oiled.
  2. Level the filling of rice porridge, herbs and chopped boiled eggs.
  3. We cover this layer with two sheets of filo and coat with oil.
  4. Level the layer of minced fish and close the kulebyak with the next three sheets.
  5. Lubricate the surface of the cake with whipped yolk and put in a preheated oven. Take out when browned.

Greek Spinach and Feta Pie

Greek spanocopyt pie is made from exhaust dough. For its preparation, in addition to Feta and spinach, you will also need Ricotta, 4 eggs and an onion.

At the bottom of the ceramic mold lay 6 layers of filo, sprinkled with olive oil.

On top of the dough, level the filling:

  1. A packet of feta cheese is chopped with a fork.
  2. Beat 4 eggs in a bowl, stir with the contents of a package of Ricotta cheese.
  3. Combine all the ingredients, add chopped onion to golden color.
  4. The resulting sauce is poured into a bowl with spinach and mixed.

The filling is covered with two more layers of filo. The edges are smeared with yolk and held together. The surface of the cake is coated with olive oil.

The workpiece is baked in the oven for about 40 minutes. Before cutting the cake, let stand for 15 to 20 minutes.

Sweet Banitsa Recipe

Banitsa is an airy curd cake made from the finest dough. This is a national Bulgarian dish. It is prepared in a round detachable form. About 400 g of dough is used for the pie.

We make rolls. Lubricate the filo with butter. We put the second layer on it. Oil again. Finely distribute the filling.

Filling:

  • in equal proportions, mix cottage cheese and grated feta cheese (about 400 g each);
  • add two eggs;
    we turn everything into a homogeneous mass.

The dough is wrapped in a thin long roll, which is folded by a "snail" and placed in the middle of the baking dish. Around the first roll, other sheets of dough folded in the same way are laid out. The contents of the form are poured by pouring from a glass of sour cream, one egg and a tablespoon of sugar.

The pie comes to readiness at 180ºС in 40 minutes.

Pollock baked in filo pastry

Filo fish pies are very light.Pollock (1 kg) should be pre-boiled and freed from bones.

  1. Add 150 g of grated cheese to the minced fish, chop four boiled eggs and add flavor to the filling due to chopped greens.
  2. Put the filo dough in 7-8 layers, each of which is sprinkled with olive oil. We distribute the filling according to the test, departing from the edges by 6 - 7 cm.
  3. Wrap the edges inward, covering the filling.
  4. Roll the dough roll, coat it with egg yolk and set to bake at 180ºС. The cake will be cooked in literally 20 minutes.

Chicken onion triangles

  1. Boil chicken breast (250-300 g) in salted water.
  2. In hot oil, fry the chopped onion finely.
  3. Divide the meat into fibers and put in a pan to the onion. Fry lightly.
  4. Fill three sheets of filo one on one and cut lengthwise into three thin “paths”. Grease each one.
  5. Put a spoon on the edge of the filling. Raise the dough by one corner, covering the minced meat. Continue wrapping the filo around the filling until you get a triangular bun.
  6. Lay the puffs on parchment, grease them with chicken yolk and bake at 200 ° C for 15 minutes.

"Napoleon" from filo pastry

We add three sheets of filo and place it on parchment paper. Bake the billet in the oven for 4 minutes until golden brown.

Cream:

  • can of condensed milk;
  • a pack of butter;
  • a cup of fat cream;

Beat condensed milk and butter separately. Convert the cream into a stable foam in another container. We mix both of them with a spatula. We get an oil cream.

Grease filo cakes with the resulting composition. Sprinkle the top layer with crumbs and put the cake in the refrigerator until morning.

Filo pastry is a great base for improvisation. You can bake both sweet desserts and hearty meat pies with it. Many people prefer to buy ready-made dough. But, as we found out, making it yourself is not so difficult.