Jessica Tsicaderis is an amazing, passionate cook and recipe developer from Melbourne. She attributes her love of food to her two grandmothers, who she draws constant inspiration from when cooking nostalgic dishes from her Greek cultural heritage. She loves recreating the beautiful dishes of her childhood and is currently working on collating her family’s recipes for a personal cookbook project, as a keepsake for her daughters.
She always wows us with her delicious traditional Greek creations, and her Galaktoboureko is renowned amongst her family. Crispy golden Fillo Pastry encases a luscious creamy custard and is drenched in a sweet sugar syrup. It’s a delicious traditional Greek favourite that everyone will enjoy.
Ingredients
375g Antoniou Fillo Pastry
For the syrup
2 cups water
2 cups caster sugar
2 cinnamon quills
Strips of peel from a small unwaxed lemon
For the custard
2 litres milk
1 cup caster sugar
1 tbs vanilla extract
50g vanilla sugar
1 cup fine semolina
½ cup cornflour
3 eggs, lightly beaten
250g unsalted butter, melted
To serve
Ground cinnamon
Method
Before you begin this Fillo Pastry recipe, take your Fillo Pastry out of the fridge to bring it up to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius fan forced.
Making the syrup
In a medium pot add water, sugar, cinnamon quills and lemon peel.
Heat gently and stir until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil then turn heat down to low and let syrup simmer for 15 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool.
Making the custard
In a large, deep pot add 1750 mls of the milk and set on medium heat to warm up. Add the caster sugar, the vanilla extract, the vanilla sugar and the semolina. Stir constantly until the semolina begins to thicken the custard, approximately 15-20 minutes.
In a small jug mix the remaining 250 mls of milk with ½ cup of cornflour and mix until the cornflour has dissolved. Pour the cornflour mixture into the custard mixture and cook for a further 5 minutes until the custard is beautifully thick and creamy.
Take the custard off the heat and allow to cool slightly. Gently whisk eggs together in a small bowl then pour into the custard mixture, whisking vigorously until the eggs are fully incorporated into the custard and they don’t curdle. The custard filling is now ready.
Assembling the Galaktoboureko
Brush a 25cm by 35cm by 8cm baking tin liberally with melted butter.
Remove your Fillo Pastry from its packaging. Half the packet will form your bottom layer, the other half will be used for the top layer.
For your bottom layer: Lay out your first piece of Fillo Pastry on a clean work surface. Using a pastry brush, generously brush the Fillo with melted butter, then lay it at the bottom of the baking pan. Repeat with the next sheet of Fillo Pastry. Depending on the size of your baking tray you may want to adjust the position of each filo sheet you layer to ensure full coverage up the sides of the tray and even a slight overhang over edges of the tray. These will later be folded back over the filling to encase it snugly.
Continue buttering and layering your Fillo sheets until you have used up half the packet.
Pour your custard filling into the baking tray. Cover the custard with any overhanging layers of the bottom Pastry sheets.
Butter and layer your top Pastry sheets to cover the custard until all the Pastry is used.
Gently tuck any excess pastry down the inner sides of the tray, encasing the custard filling snuggly.
With a sharp knife score the top layers of Pastry into your chosen serving size. (You may cut into squares, triangles or diamonds). Be careful not to cut too deep down so as not to cut into the custard.
Place in the oven on the middle rack and bake for 40 minutes or until the Pastry is golden.
Remove from the oven and pour the cooled syrup along the lines where you scored the pastry and around the inner edges of the baking tray. The aim is for the syrup to seep down into the bottom layers of the Galaktoboureko but the top layer stays crisp and golden.
You may reserve some of your syrup to pour extra on top when serving.
Allow the Galaktoboureko to sit for at least 1 hour before cutting and serving.
Serve with a dusting of ground cinnamon if desired.
Jessica Tsicaderis
Jessica Tsicaderis is an amazing, passionate cook and recipe developer from Melbourne. She attributes her love of food to her two grandmothers, who she draws constant inspiration from when cooking nostalgic dishes from her Greek cultural heritage. She loves recreating the beautiful dishes of her childhood and is currently working on collating her family’s recipes for a personal cookbook project, to share with her daughters.
She always wows us with her delicious traditional Greek creations, and her galaktoboureko is renowned amongst her family. Crispy golden Fillo Pastry encases a luscious creamy custard and is drenched in a sweet sugar syrup. It’s a delicious traditional Greek favourite that everyone will enjoy.
Follow Jessica
You can follow Jessica’s journey on her Instagram page, ‘Jesswhoamamma’, where she also shares many other delicious recipes.