who has made their own phyllo? anyone?

canadianlbs

yeah, i have nothing better to do with my life i'm fascinated by phyllo but when it comes to the 'let dough wrap around pin' part, i just do not get how come it doesn't stick to itself. doesn't it? if not, why not?

wondering if anyone has this skill down already and can give me whatever the magic tip is. i don't think i absolutely need to know - already demonstrated to myself that i can get it transparency-thin without that. but like i said, i'm just fascinated and if there's a trick i would love to know it.

thanks in advance.

L1zardQueen

I wish I could make pie crust, it's always full of bits and pieces. I'll be lurking.

pinuplove

No. I am not a masochist

Do you watch The Great British Baking Show? They made it on there a couple of times.

mom23mangos

All I know is that in Greece, the little old ladies put boards on their beds so they can stretch it thin enough.

canadianlbs

mom23mangos wrote: »

All I know is that in Greece, the little old ladies put boards on their beds so they can stretch it thin enough.

clearly i need to find me a little old lady. oh wait.

pinuplove wrote: »

Do you watch The Great British Baking Show? They made it on there a couple of times.

do they discuss my burning question at all? i've seen the bake-off a few times but none with phyllo. and i've seen lots of other stuff that just airly says TO do it, but doesn't explain the non-sticking magic.

anyway, book report. it was actually fun, and it helps that i just wanted to do it, so the baklava that i made is just an excuse and not the reason. a little lump about the size of a walnut rolls out easy big enough to fit in a 9x9 pan, and i have this feeling the broomstick is critical. don't think a regular rolling pin would have done it, at least not in my hands.

i didn't get it AS thin as the stuff that's pre-made, but thin enough to read through. it's not actually that hard. i just had to discipline myself to start with a very soft dough so it will be very elastic, and then add a sort of flour skin to it. i didn't mess around with the rollup part, but finger stretching and other tactics made it about as thick as my grey theraband . once you get it stretched out it feels a lot like playing with latex, actually. fingertip treatment took it a long way further, and i realised that for me the trick is to stay small. anything bigger than the 9x9 thing gets hard to control and does tend to fold in on itself.

still not really thin enough to not be heavy and chewy when baked, but maybe i goofed on the assembly part. i dunno.

i'd like to try this with a yeast dough now. i'm jsut curious to see what dough looks like when it starts out 1/64th of an inch thick, and then rises. another thing i'd like to try is giving it a cinnamon skin instead of the flour.

anyway, still like to hear from anyone who's got this one down. i'm just playing with it personally and already staring to go off sideways from the original track.

Francl27

I saw it on the Great Baking Show too. It looks daunting, lol. They didn't show all the steps though.

Dumb question, but did you youtube it?

mom23mangos

@canadianlbs - homemade will never be as thin as store bought. It's always thicker and crunchier. I'm not a fan of it, but my husband loves it. He insists that the traditional New Year's Vasilopita be made with homemade phyllo. I let his mom deal with that.

canadianlbs

Francl27 wrote: »

Dumb question, but did you youtube it?

not that dumb, but nah.

mom23mangos wrote: »

I let his mom deal with that.

ah hah. so i just have to wait 10 more months and then you'll interrogate her and pass on the answer \o/.

Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »

I wish I could make pie crust, it's always full of bits and pieces. I'll be lurking.

pastry kills me. i can do most things that allow kneading, but my pastry is usually pretty awful. i might actually resort to this the next time i want to make something pie-like.

Francl27

canadianlbs wrote: »

Francl27 wrote: »

Dumb question, but did you youtube it?

not that dumb, but nah.

mom23mangos wrote: »

I let his mom deal with that.

ah hah. so i just have to wait 10 more months and then you'll interrogate her and pass on the answer \o/.

Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »

I wish I could make pie crust, it's always full of bits and pieces. I'll be lurking.

pastry kills me. i can do most things that allow kneading, but my pastry is usually pretty awful. i might actually resort to this the next time i want to make something pie-like.

I use the King Arthur Flour recipe for pie. Makes plenty and the texture was spot on. It does help to chill it 8 hours before rolling though.

canadianlbs

so . . . dug this thread up so i can update on it. you can indeed make your own phyllo dough. well, okay . . . i can. and you know what? while the thickness may be a little uneven compared with store bought, i'm just eating my first set of spanakopita that i made from scratch and actually most of it IS just that thin. it's flaking all over the place up in here and you can see through the individual flakes. i don't have a digital phone/camera, sorry, or i would post a few shots.

is it worth it? i guess not if you don't already enjoy playing with dough. but i do and i'm actually more like one of those people who think up somethign to make just to have an excuse because theyr'e in a dough-making mood. i'm actually about as torn about this as i am about instant pot yogurt versus stove top.

store phyllo
pro: don't have to make the dough.
con: DO have to do all that sweaty, stressy, nitpicky fandancing around to a) separate it and then b) keep cover/work quickly to keep it from getting dried out. at least as much of a pain in the butt, to my mind.

home phyllo
pro: cheap cheap cheap. how much does a pound of flour cost? plus two eggs. that's honestly pretty much it.
does not dry out and crack like store-bought. not actually very hard to stretch out, once you believe you can take it that far and get the feeling for it. size control means you don't need massive real estate for doing it.
con: yeah okay; still more of an i-feel-like-a-project type thing. you can't stick a book under something and read very much while you're stretching it out. dough does tear.

tips, things i learned, etc:
- i was wrong about the wet dough. dry actually seemed stronger, but best is to start out a bit soft because then you can stack the pieces and roll them together with extra flour/cornstarch between to deal with the sticking problem
- a 1-inch ball will open up to an amazing size, and how much it tears during the final stretch is all about size. so stay small.
- stacking the sheets once they're at least mostly rolled out gets you an amazing amount of extra thinness.
- the trick about the whole 'wrap around the stick' thing is that you place your hands in the middle and use them to spread the dough sideways while rolling it. that gives you expansion in all directions and it's pretty neat.
- final stretch can be done with the fingertips. this was where small helps a lot. i think in future i'll try to stick to about an 8x12ish type thing, probably about a 1-inch ball of dough for each sheet.
- my skinny piece of pvc pipe really was better than the big beer bottle that is my 'rolling pin'.

it was fun and definitely something i'm going to add to the stack. probably not an every-week kind of thing, but pretty sure it'll be a-few-times-a-year. i never buy store phyllo anyway - just too much hassle for how much it costs. so this is nice to have because now i don't have to go without spanakopita if i'm wanting it.

thanks for the conversation about this, everyone.

Francl27

Nice update. I don't really bother with phyllo at all (even store bought) because it's such a pain, lol.

L1zardQueen

I love making things with dough too! I’ve made bacon baklava with store bought dough but I will try making my own.
Thanks for the tips

ChipChocolatePancake

My family makes all their own phyllo dough for Christmas desserts (baklava and strudel - we’re Croatian so we have a funny mix of Austrian and Greek recipes). I’m not sure about the technique you’re referring to ... to stretch our dough out super thin, we lay a bedsheet down on the dining room table, flour it thoroughly. We use a rolling pin to roll out the dough a bit initially, but once it’s flat we move it to the table. Then several of us start working on the dough at once, so that we have pretty even pressure from all sides of the table. We use the backs of our hands underneath the dough to stretch it out, and use gentle, but quick movements to constantly work it outward until it drapes over the edges and is ultra thin. Don’t wear any rings though, because it will tear. If it tears, just pinch it together and try to be more careful next time