There are certain foods and food making ingredients that I just don’t feel comfortable not having on hand in my pantry, freezer or refrigerator.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

I’m talking about stuff beyond “the staples”. Beyond flour and sugar and butter and milk. Stuff like fresh limes and at least three different types of cheese (I swear I have a panic attack when we’re only down to ‘just cheddar’), and a jar of black olives and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. Stuff like apricot jam and dark chocolate chunks and wonton skins.

And above all of that, I always have phyllo dough waiting for me in my freezer.

Why? I’ve never really been sure. I know that from time to time I start to feel less creative in the kitchen, and this time, having phyllo dough on hand really helped me out.

Phyllo dough is super super super thin dough that is extremely fragile, but looks BEAUTIFUL in almost any application. You have to be pretty careful when handling it, but its totally worth it.

So today I made little phyllo bundles filled with cream cheese, apricot preserves and pecans.

They were super easy to make, and healthy, so far as desserts go. I used no sugar added “only fruit” preserves. Apricots are totally sweet on their own, so this dessert is free of any added sugar.

I sliced the bundles in half and garnished the plate with warmed apricot preserves and pecan halves.

Phyllo dough desserts always make me feel all special like a Grecian goddess.

Wrapped up in a toga with golden jewelry and doused in all sorts of exotic perfumes. Sort of like spirit days back in high school (yeah, I totally rocked the toga). I never got to experience a college toga party, since I didn’t go to a college with sororities and fraternities, let alone dorms, even. The closest I ever got to a toga party outside spirit days in highschool and the occasional towel toga during the mad dash from the bathroom to the bedroom back when I still lived with room mates, was the year I dressed up as Baubo- goddess of belly laughter, for halloween.

Having recently learned that Baubo wasn’t the goddess of belly laughter, but something rather different indeed, I’ve decided that I should probably work on my knowledge of Greek mythology a litte bit before announcing that I’m portraying a mythical character that I really just looked up in a book and did very little research about.

Perhaps this is just the snack to eat while reading up on my mythology. Perhaps this is the ambrosia, the nectar of the gods to which legend refers.

…Or not.

Its fun to pretend though! *smile*

Want to know how to make these Cream cheese and apricot phyllo bundles with pecans?

You’ll need-

Ingredients:
Phyllo dough
Apricot preserves
Cream cheese
pecans
melted butter

Tools:
short bladed sharp knife (paring)
pastry brush
non stick cookie sheet

Proceedure:
Before you handle the phyllo dough, its important to have everything prepped and ready to go. Since phyllo dough is extremely thin and lacks fat in its ingredients, it has a tendency to crumble and break when it dries out, which happens very easily. Keep the phyllo in its package until you’re ready to use it, just make sure that it is thawed out.

Meanwhile, prepare the cream cheese. I cut one brick (8oz ) into 10 pieces roughly the same size each. I melted about 4 tablespoons of butter and had it ready at my workstation. I had my pecans ready to go as well.
Once I had everything out, I removed two sheets of phyllo from the roll and laid them on top of each other on my clean, dry, workspace (a wooden cutting board) I brushed a thin layer of butter on top of half of the top sheet, and folded the two sheets together, in half (meaning I did not brush butter between each layer, only on half of the first sheet, where I folded the non buttered half on top of the buttered half.) Then I brushed a thin layer of butter on the top of the folded sheets. using my knife, I cut the layered phyllo sheets in half (two sheets folded in half makes it 4 sheets thick, phyllo, phyllo, butter, phyllo, phyllo, butter) widthwise.

On the exposed buttered top of each half of the layered phyllo, I placed one piece of cream cheese, which I smushed a bit to elongate it a bit. On top of that I spooned about a tablespoon of the apricot preserves, and then topped that off with two pecan halves. I folded the whole thing like a burrito, folding the short ends up and over the filling, then folding the long ends up and over the previously folded phyllo ends as well as the filling.

Then I placed each bundle folded side down on an ungreased non-stick cookie sheet, and brushed the tops with a little bit more melted butter.

Once you’ve finished all ten, (or as many as you’re making) bake them at 350 for about 8-10 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown. Some of the preserves will have melted out through the seams, but don’t worry, this really isn’t preventable. Also, if you notice the ends crisping and turning brown but not the tops, turn the broiler on for a moment, but be sure to keep a very watchful eye on them, so they don’t burn. The broiler works quickly!

Once you’ve removed them from the oven, quickly use a fork or a spatula to lift them up and lay them down folded side UP on a wire cooling rack or parchment covered plate. If you let them cool on the baking sheet they will stick when the melted preserves harden, and they’ll break apart before you are able to pry them off. Also, if you lay them down folded side down, the bits of melted preserves will cool and harden onto the plate or wire rack, causing the same problem.

Now that the bundles are out of the oven, you can either serve them hot, with a little extra apricot preserves and some pecan halves on top of the full bundle (as pictured at the bottom of this post) or you can let them cool a bit and slice them in half on the bias, and serve them on a platter, cut end up, or two halves to a plate all pretty with some heated apricot jam and pecan halves drizzled on top.

Notes:
I made about 10 bundles, so I used 20 phyllo sheets. I still had some left on the roll, so I just rolled it back up, wrapped it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge. Phyllo keeps pretty well so long as its wrapped and in an area of the fridge where it won’t get damaged.

I used a no sugar added no preservative variety of apricot preserves. Apricots are naturally sweet, and their colour is vibrant enough to really perk up this dessert. I also tried making this with some homemade blueberry jam and found that the jam soaked through the phyllo dough slightly while it was baking, and though I prepared them exactly the same, they didn’t brown or crisp as well as the apricot ones. They were still SO GOOD though.

As well as trying this with different jams, I also tried different nuts. I greatly preferred the pecans, because they held onto their flavour. The almonds added the same crunch as the pecans, but their flavour was lost with the jam. Same with the filberts (hazelnuts). Really though, get creative here and use whatever type of nut you want, so long as its small enough to be bundled and soft enough to be bitten through.

If you wanted to cut the fat of this dessert, you could use neufchatel cheese, which has about 1/3 less fat in it (it is made with whole milk instead of cream, otherwise it is the same), although it tastes very very similar. Also, you could use cooking spray (Like pam) instead of melted butter between the layers of the phyllo, and that will cut some of the fat as well, though you’ll miss out on the flavour that the butter provides.

So go and get thee to thine grocers freezer and get some phyllo to play with! Who knows, maybe you’ll create some sort of delicious concoction that would make Zeus himself ask for the recipe.

…anything is possible!

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:36 am and is filed under January 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.