(This post was originally published on April 11, 2014; we have had such good feedback about this recipe that we decided to re-post it today).
Sesame pita? Sure, why not? We believe that we could put any sweet item in phyllo, bake it and coat it with syrup and it would be tasty. Actually, you could put any savoury food in phyllo dough and bake it and it would be tasty. But sesame falls between the two categories of sweet and savoury. Do you put it with syrup or make it savoury with something else like cheese? When we saw that sesame became a sweet, we became curiously excited. What reassured us that this recipe was going to be good is that it was taken from one of our main cookbooks, Vefa's Kitchen. We rely on the same five or six cookbooks through the duration of Great Lent, knowing that whatever we make out of these books will typically turn out pretty well, will be tasty, and will be fasting appropriate. Of course, there are other resources from where we get our recipes, and we spend a lot of time reading! There is this one blog we especially like … it's called Great Lent Gourmet… (hee hee hee). Another blog we really love to read very often is http://stuffedveggies.blogspot.ca.
For this recipe, you will need the following ingredients:
1 package Phyllo sheets
Oil or pan spray for in between the sheets of phyllo
Filling: 2 1/4 cups sesame seeds
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
For the syrup: (We would like to note that we had some syrup from making another sweet from three days ago, and we used that syrup for this recipe. If you have any leftover syrup, please consider using that, provided it has no super-strong flavours to alter the taste of the sesame pie)
5 cups sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups water
Start by making the syrup, if you don't have any. It will take about 45 minutes to simmer on the stove, so that can simmer while you make the filling and assemble the pita. Mix all the ingredients for the syrup in a small pot and let it simmer on a medium low heat for 45 minutes. It should get slightly thicker and will turn a light golden colour. Allow this to continue to simmer on low heat until you are ready to use it. We heated our syrup in a pan and left it on low heat for the duration of making the pita.
Most recipes that call for a syrup on top of a food ask for one item to be hot and the other to be cold -- usually it is a hot food and a cold syrup. But, this recipe is a little different where both parts have to be hot. That is so the pie does not absorb too much syrup, and the syrup stays thin enough to coat the entire pie.
Now that the syrup is simmering, it is time to make the filling. You will need a food processor for this.
First, grind the sesame seeds to a fine powder, almost a paste. It will be a rough paste, not like tahini which is smooth and thick, you want less smooth than that. To the sesame seeds, add the sugar, cinnamon, and cloves. Blend this together until the mixture is well combined and becomes a little cohesive.
Now, prepare the phyllo sheets. On the countertop, lay out one sheet of the phyllo dough and coat it with oil. You can use a pastry brush to "paint" the oil onto the phyllo, or you can use a vegetable oil based pan spray (like we did). Coat the entire sheet of phyllo.
Lay the second layer of phyllo on top of the first. Make sure the corners line up and are as flush as possible. You want the two sheets to look like one -- one thick sheet. You will do this one more time and total three sheets of phyllo. Make sure the third layer is fully coated with the oil or the pan spray.
Take the filling that you made and lay out one row of filling along the long side of the sheet of phyllo. You are going to roll this into a cigar-shaped log, so make a thin row of the filling. You can use your hands or fingers to try to straighten the filling, but you will also do that with the phyllo, so do not overthink this.
Now, it is time to roll the log.
First, make sure the filling is tightly wrapped in that first inch of phyllo. If you overlap the edge of the phyllo on top of the filling, and tuck in the edge under the filling, and pull the phyllo roll back toward you, you will get a snug cigar shape. Then, you can roll the rest of the way. Now, watching carefully so that you keep the log straight and even, start to roll the phyllo into a long cylinder. About half way through the rolling, pinch the edges closed so that the filling does not ooze out while the log bakes. This is especially important for softer or juicier fillings.
Once you have the entire cylinder rolled, it is time to twist this log into a spiral shape. Although we were not greatly successful with this step, our spirals looked acceptable. Hold the one end of the log, and pick up the other end. Carry the second end around the first and go round and round until you run out of log. It should look like a spiral.
Brush the top of the spiral with oil (or spray it) and set it on a paper lined or greased cookie sheet. We used the silicone baking mat as we usually do. As long as there is something between the bottom phyllo and the actual metal of the cookie sheet, you will be fine. Phyllo is rather forgiving that way. It is not forgiving, however, when rolling the spirals. You can see in our photograph that the phyllo cracked. We think that is because the phyllo was a little cold, as was the kitchen, so the dough was not as pliable as when it is actually room temperature.
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| Notice the crack in our spiral. Nevertheless, the final product turned out really well! |
Bake the spirals for about 45 minutes at 350º F (175º C). You want them to be golden brown and firm. The spirals should move freely on the baking sheet.
Now for the fun part! Take that hot pita spiral and put it in the hot syrup. Make sure that the syrup should be at a medium low heat so that the syrup is hot. The pita just came out of the oven so we know that is hot, too. Ours is a little dark in colour, but it was hot out of the oven!
Fully submerge the pita in the syrup and hold it down for about 45 seconds. This gives ample time for the syrup to sink into the sesame filling and through the middle of the spiral.
Allow the excess syrup to drip off the pita, and set it back on the cookie sheet and allow it to cool. If it looks dry, spoon some more syrup on top of the pita. You want it wet, but not soaked. The spiral should shine and drip a little without being gooey.
To serve these, either serve them as entire spirals, which would be great if they were small; alternatively, you can cut each spiral into smaller pieces and serve as bite-sized bits. We chose the bite sized bits. And, sometimes one bite is all you really want or need.
"No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us."
1 John 4:12-19
Source of quote: http://theodorakis.net/orthodoxquotescomplete.html
1 John 4:12-19
Thank you so much for your praise of my blog, Stuffedveggies! I'm truly honored & delighted! : )
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