Phyllo Dough Toaster Pastries
My son, Cameron, said to me today, “Mom, you’re the biggest poop of the United States of America.” Call me crazy, but I think he was trying to compliment me. The United States is so huge, so to be the biggest is pretty impressive. If he said I was the second biggest I’d be upset, but he was very clear in his words. Also, I couldn’t help but beam with pride that my 4 year old knew the name of the country he lives in. And he said it with a patriotic tone. I swear, I could hear the rhythm of the Pledge of Allegiance in there while he spoke. I hope I didn’t make you jealous. Look, not all of us can be the biggest poop. Anyway, that’s how my day started. By noon, I was making these phyllo dough toaster pastries, and now, it’s 6 :30 p.m. and I’m drinking wine. I don’t have much else to say about the day except that these phyllo dough toaster pastries are so darn good- crisp and buttery on the outside, sweet and gooey on the inside. I ate one too many, and now I feel like the biggest human of the United States of America. I just made you really, really jealous, didn’t I?
I have never worked with phyllo until now. It’s a bit intimidating. My hand shook a little when I started to pick one up. Therefore, here are a few tricks to keep in mind when working with these very thin sheets of dough.
- Let the phyllo dough defrost slowly. You can buy frozen phyllo in most supermarkets. Allow them to defrost in the refrigerator over night, and then take them out an hour before you are to use them. Defrosting too quickly will make them stick to each other.
- Cover the phyllo dough with a damp towel while you work. This prevents them from drying out.
- Unused phyllo can be refrigerated for 3 days if wrapped well. Do not freeze after they have sat out- only refrigerate.
- It is pronounced “fee-low”. You probably knew that. I, on the other hand, have been saying “fye-low” all day.
Yum.
For my fillings I used Nutella in one batch and strawberry jam in the other. After they baked and cooled I drizzled both with a sugar glaze. I found that baking them in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes worked well. I started at 400 degrees, but they browned too quickly. You might have to play around with this. One more thing before we begin… I was inspired by three ladies when making these yummy pastries. Alana Chernila from her book, The Homemade Pantry, has a yummy recipe for toaster pastries using pie pastry dough; Katerina from the food blog Diethood has a delicious recipe for phyllo dough raspberry “pop tarts”; Gesine Bullock-Prado has a great recipe for crumble in her book, Pie It Forward.
Brush each phyllo sheet with melted butter- both sides.
After you’ve layered five buttered sheets, make a boarder with your filling about 1/2-inch from the edges.
Fill in the border.
With an off set spatula, smooth out the filling to make it nice and even. Do this gently, so as not to tear the phyllo.
Cover with 5 more buttered phyllo sheets.
Using a fluted pastry or pizza cutter, cut out 8 rectangles. Don’t move them.
I topped the strawberry jam with a brown sugar crumble.
Bake the pastries in a 350 degree F. oven for 12 minutes, or until very lightly golden.
Drizzle with a sugar icing and enjoy!
- 1/2 package of Phyllo Dough (10 sheets)
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick or 56 g) Unsalted Butter, melted
- 1 cup of filling (Your choice!)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick or 113 g) Unsalted Butter, melted
- 1/4 cup (50 g) Sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 g) Brown Sugar
- 1/4 tsp. Salt
- 1 1/4 cups (155 g) All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (23 g) Powdered Sugar (sifted)
- 2 TBS Whole Milk
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Add the melted butter, and mix until it is absorbed and the mixture starts to clump up. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line to baking sheets with foil.
- Fill a disposable pastry bag with your filling.
- Using a pastry brush, gently butter 5 sheets of phyllo dough each, buttering both sides. Layer them on the baking sheet as you go.
- With your filled pastry bag, pipe out a border on top of the stacked dough. Leave about 1/2-inch space from the edge. Roughly fill in the border with the rest of the filling. With an off-set spatula, gently smooth out the filling. If using crumble, sprinkle a little over filling.
- On top of the filling, layer 5 more sheets of buttered phyllo dough. Cut 8 rectangles using a fluted pastry or pizza cutter. Do not move the rectangles.
- Bake in the oven for 12 minutes or until they turn a light golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
- Sift powdered sugar into a medium-sized bowl. Stir in milk and vanilla extract. Add more milk or powdered sugar to reach the consistency you desire.
- Put glaze into disposable piping bag. Leave the cooled pastries on the wire rack, and place wire rack atop parchment paper. Drizzle glaze over pastries. Dig in!
- 2 baking sheets
- pastry brush
- foil
- disposable pastry bags
- pastry or pizza cutter
- wire rack
- Pastries will last three days in the refrigerator if wrapped up well. Heat chilled pastries in a 350 degree oven or toaster oven for about 5 minutes to crisp up.
- Left over crumble can be frozen for up to 3 months.
