Land of Milk & Honey Filo Cheese Danish
Source of Recipe
Clabber Girl
Recipe Introduction
Even if filo dough is new to you or otherwise intimidates, you cannot go wrong in how you roll up these pastries - they always work out. You can even coil them in ropes and coil the ropes around themselves to make a round pastry.
List of Ingredients
- 1 pound package filo dough
- 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
- Syrup:
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 3 thin slices of lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- Pastry Cream:
- 4 cups milk
- 3/4 cup very fine cornmeal or semolina
- 5 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter, melted and clarified (skimmed off)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, optional
Instructions
- Have the filo ready, covered in a damp towel.
- For the syrup, whisk the sugar and water together in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and then add in lemon and cinnamon. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-minutes. Cool. For the butter, melt it over low heat, skim and set aside, keeping half for the custard, and half to brush the filo with later.
- For the custard, in a 4-quart saucepan, heat milk and semolina, stirring constantly until it reaches the boiling point. Remove from heat; cool 5-minutes.
- In a bowl, beat eggs and sugar until fluffy; add to semolina mixture. Add 1/2-cup melted butter and lemon rind; blend well. Stir in the vanilla. Smear the top with some melted butter, cover lightly with wax paper and chill 1-2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. To make the pastries, butter 2-3 sheets of filo. Smear on 1/4 cup of so of pastry cream, down the length of the side closest to you (which is also, the longer side of the filo). Roll the pastry over (3-4 times) to make it a long 'package, smearing on more butter as you roll up the filo. Fold it in from the ends, to make a neat pastry square or rectangle. Place on the baking sheet, and brush with additional butter. Score it slightly. Repeat with remaining filo and pastry cream. Bake at 30-45 minutes or until pastries are evenly deep, golden brown all over.
- Drizzle the cooled syrup over the hot pastries. Return to oven for 5-minutes; let stand 2-hours before serving. If you find the pastries too large, cut into diamonds (in half) or smaller squares. Dust with confectioners' sugar if desired, before serving.
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