Crispy Filo Pastry Filled With Warm Custard Cream

Bougatsa is a very crispy pastry dessert filled with a velvety custard cream. Always served warm sprinkled with lots of icing sugar and cinnamon.

In Greece, we mostly have it for breakfast. It’s a pretty fulfilling dessert to serve after a meal (unless you only have a tiny piece). That’s why it’s best served on its own for breakfast or along with a big cup of coffee. They’re sooo good together.

There are two versions of Greek Bougatsa. There is the one you find on Greek bakeries, filled with custard cream. And the homemade version that always uses a semolina cream. Both versions taste awesome, but I always liked the custard cream Bougatsa more.

The reason is that even though semolina cream is firmer and more stable, custard cream creates the perfect contrast to this ultra crispy filo dessert. Warm and runny, velvety like cream oozing out of the crispy pastry. It’s simply DIVINE!

As for the cooking part

This Greek dessert may sound a bit more difficult to make than it actually is. It requires only 30 minutes of cooking. Which to my mind is a fair amount of time to spend on cooking breakfast. Ehm…on a Sunday let’s say ??

So what you really do is:

Add a thick layer of filo pastry sheets (pushed together) in a baking dish and drizzle with melted butter.
Bake
Spread cream on top.
Cover with another layer of filo sheets.
Bake
Ready to serve!

And here is my quick-peek-pic-tutorial. To convince you that it is EASY TO MAKE!

I use a 15×10 inch / 38×25 cm baking dish (affiliate) for this recipe. It’s ok if you use a slightly smaller one but don’t go for a bigger one. The filo won’t be enough.

Ingredients