Tip for Working with Phyllo Dough

When I work with phyllo dough, I feel like I've missed my calling as a pastry chef.  The results are always a light and crispy perfection.  But then I remember that everything about phyllo dough is easy, so I better stick to my day job.

I use phyllo dough to make Baklava, one of my husband's favorite desserts.  The recipe I use is this one from Allrecipes.com (love that site!).  Pioneer Woman's recipe is basically the same, so that's how good it is!  I try to make Baklava every year for New Year's Eve and for my husband's birthday as well. 

Last week, I used phyllo dough to make hors d'oeuvres for a Christmas party.  I made crawfish etouffee to serve in phyllo dough cups.  They're super easy to make, if you know my mom's secret. 

Phyllo dough is like paper, maybe even tissue paper, and all recipes tell you to butter each layer of dough.  As in scrape a knife with butter over each layer.  Envision yourself trying to butter a Kleenex and you can about imagine how difficult this would be.  Even using a pastry brush would be a bit of a mess and a challenge.

So spray it. 

That's right.  The secret is spray butter.  Lightly spray each layer with Parkay Spray Butter and you'll be home free.  It's a huge time saver and definitely a sanity saver.  You can dump out the fake stuff and melt your real butter for the bottle if you prefer.  Either way, you'll find it much easier to spray your phyllo dough than any other technique.

Now go make some Baklava! 

Hors D'oeuvres:  Phyllo dough cups in the silver bowl

with etouffee in my fondue pot in the back

If you want to make the phyllo dough cups, those are very simple.  You'll need to stack up a layer of 5-6 sheets of dough with butter between each sheet.  Using a pizza cutter, cut the stack into 12 squares.  Cram each square into a minimuffin tin.  Once you've filled up the tin, spray each one and bake for about 10 minutes on 350.  Easy peasy.  You can buy a box of 15-20 ready made cups for the same price that you could make 100+ yourself. 

What's cookin' at your house this week?