🥧 Bougatsa
Bougatsa is a Greek pastry of crisp, buttery phyllo wrapped around a thick, warm semolina custard. It is cut into squares, dusted generously with icing sugar and cinnamon and eaten warm, usually for breakfast with coffee. The contrast between the shattering pastry and the soft, lightly sweet cream is the whole point.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 10 sheets phyllo pastry
- 80 g butter, melted
- 1 litre milk
- 120 g fine semolina
- 130 g sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Icing sugar and ground cinnamon to serve
Method
- Heat the milk with the sugar, whisk in the semolina and cook, stirring, for 5–7 minutes until thick. Off the heat, beat in the eggs one at a time and the vanilla.
- Heat the oven to 180 °C. Brush a 25 × 35 cm tray with butter and lay in 5 phyllo sheets, brushing each one with butter.
- Spread the custard over the phyllo, cover with the remaining 5 sheets, buttering each, and tuck in the edges.
- Score the top into squares and bake for 40–45 minutes until golden and crisp.
- Cool for 15 minutes, cut and serve warm, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon.
How to make it lighter
- Brush the phyllo lightly — a thin film of butter is enough for crisp layers.
- Go easy on the icing sugar and be generous with cinnamon instead.
- One square is a full breakfast pastry; pair it with an unsweetened coffee rather than a sweet drink.
History
Bougatsa is most closely linked to Thessaloniki and Serres in northern Greece, where specialist bougatsa shops open early in the morning. Its spread there is usually credited to Greek refugees from Asia Minor and Constantinople who arrived in the early 1920s. Savoury versions with cheese or minced meat exist too, but the sweet custard one is the best known.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →