Bougatsa (Greek Custard Tart)

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Servings 8 - 16

Ingredients

10 sheets Fillo pastry
200g butter, melted
4 eggs
200g sugar
20g all-purpose flour
1L milk
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean
1 tsp rosewater or orange blossom
Cinnamon and icing sugar for sprinkling

Method

In a large bowl add the sugar, eggs, orange blossom and flour. Whisk until the ingredients combine.

Pour the milk and vanilla into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Right before the milk comes to the boil, ladle 1/3 of the milk into the flour mixture and stir. Turn the heat down and add the flour mixture into the saucepan with the remaining warm milk. Whisk very quickly, until the mixture has thickened and is smooth and creamy. This should take 2-3 minutes. Remove the pan from the stove and stir occasionally, to keep the custard from forming a skin on top, while you prepare the rest of the bougatsa recipe.

Pre heat the oven to 180°C.

One by one begin to layer the fillo pastry on a clean surface. Brush each sheet thoroughly with melted butter. Repeat this process 9 more times so you have 10 buttered layers in total, separate piles of 5 sheets each. Cut the layers into 4 pieces horizontally (or 8 pieces if you want to make smaller parcels). For each parcel spoon around 1 large tablespoon of custard and fold the Fillo sheet flaps over the custard. Brush the top with butter. Bake the bougatsa parcels for 45 minutes or until the Fillo is crisp and golden.

Let the bougatsa cool down for a while before serving and sprinkle with icing sugar and cinnamon.