Bougatsa
A Thessaloniki breakfast, sold from dawn in bakeries, many of which specialise in little else. The custard is semolina rather than flour — semolina gives the density and the faint grain by which bougatsa is known. Two technical points are compulsory: the custard must be completely cold before it goes in, since warm it melts the butter and softens the filo, and the pie is cut only after baking — filo cut beforehand separates and dries out.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Semolina custard 20 min
- Cooling the custard 45 min
- Assembly 15 min
- Baking 40 min
- Cooling 15 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneBoil the milk and rain in the semolina
Bring the milk to a boil with the sugar, zest and salt, then rain in the semolina in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Tipped in at once it seizes into lumps — semolina binds instantly and they cannot be broken up afterwards.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 120 g semolina · 150 g sugar · 3 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Cook to the thickness of custard
Cook 5 minutes over low heat, stirring, until it thickens and the whisk leaves a clear track. The semolina must be fully cooked — undercooked, it tastes raw and floury.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 120 g semolina · 150 g sugar · 3 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
The whisk leaves a track — the semolina is cooked.Stir in the eggs off the heat
Take off the heat, wait 2 minutes and beat in the eggs one at a time, briskly. Added to a boiling mixture they set into threads. Stir in the butter and vanilla until smooth.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 120 g semolina · 150 g sugar · 3 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Cool the custard completely
Cover with film touching the surface and cool the custard to room temperature — in a wide bowl or a cold-water bath this takes about 45 minutes. Warm custard melts the butter between the filo sheets, the layers fuse, and instead of crisp pastry you get a dense damp mass.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 120 g semolina · 150 g sugar · 3 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Layer buttered filo with overhang
Line a tin of about 23×33 cm with six sheets of filo, brushing each with butter and letting them hang over the sides. The overhang folds back over the top later and closes the pie without extra sheets.
Ingredients: 10 pcs filo pastry · 150 g butter
Every sheet buttered — and hanging over the sides.Spread the custard and close the pie
Spread in the cold custard, level it, fold the overhanging edges inward and cover with four more sheets, each buttered. Brush the last sheet generously — it becomes the crisp crust.
Ingredients: 10 pcs filo pastry · 150 g butter
Bake 40 minutes to deep gold
Bake in an oven heated to 180°C for 40 minutes, until the top is deep gold and audibly brittle when tapped. Pale filo is limp — bougatsa must be baked noticeably darker than instinct suggests.
Ingredients: 10 pcs filo pastry · 150 g butter
Cool a quarter hour, then cut and dust
Cool 15 minutes, then cut into squares with a sharp knife and dust thickly with icing sugar and cinnamon. Cut at once it leaks custard; fully cold it loses its crispness. Fifteen minutes is the right compromise.
Ingredients: 4 tbsp icing sugar · 2 tsp cinnamon
A quarter hour's rest — not straight away, not cold.
Before you start
Sweet and savoury bougatsa
Thessaloniki eats two versions: the sweet custard one, served at breakfast with coffee, and a savoury one with cheese or minced meat. The same filo construction, an entirely different dish.
Filo must stay covered
Uncovered filo sheets dry out within minutes and then crumble at a touch. Keep the whole stack under a damp cloth and pull out one sheet at a time. This is the main difficulty in the recipe.
Best the same day
Bougatsa is best on the day it is baked — by the next the filo softens from the custard's moisture, though the flavour holds. A milk and egg custard should not sit at room temperature for more than 2 hours, though: keep leftovers in the fridge for up to 2 days and refresh for 8–10 minutes in an oven heated to 180°C to crisp the filo again.
