It took awhile this year, but Summer is finally here and for me, that means easy, breezy everything! I like to cook outside more, heat up the inside less, eat with minimal preparation – and so much of Summer’s bounty lets us do just that. When I start thinking of Summertime desserts, the first thing that comes to mind is fresh fruit – there’s just so much available. Right now it’s all about strawberries for me: they’re so sweet and juicy, they don’t need a lot of fuss… perfect!
I just picked up some strawberries at the market this morning, so I started to think about making a light dessert for tonight. But what could I serve them with that didn’t need a lot of preparation? As I poked around my refrigerator, I ran across half a package of phyllo dough left over from a recipe I was trying out about a week ago. Now, phyllo dough doesn’t always hold up well once the package is opened; it just dries out really easily. But I guess the stars were aligned in my favor! I had wrapped it really tightly in plastic wrap, and while it wasn’t in perfect form for making a nice layered baklava, it should be usable for something. What came out of this was so easy, fun and delicious, I just had to share!
First I spied my jar of cinnamon sugar that I keep handy… it’s so simple, but one of my favorite things.
Just mix up some granulated sugar with cinnamon to your taste – I happen to like mine very cinnamon-y to perk up just about anything for breakfast like cinnamon toast, bagels (mixed with cream cheese), French toast and pancakes. Don’t forget about apple sauce (your own or store-bought), apple pie and coffee cake. And yes, I’ve been known to sprinkle it on popcorn, as well!
Next, I melted some butter.
Then I carefully unrolled those phyllo sheets and placed one on a plastic mat. I hated to get my wooden cutting board all greasy with butter, same goes for the counter top. So this plastic mat was perfect. I brushed on some butter.
Actually, I had to do more “dabbing” than “brushing” as these sheets were super-fragile at this point. And you can see that this was by no means “the perfect phyllo sheet.” It’s torn & a little bit dry on the edges, but just you wait! I sprinkled on some of the cinnamon sugar.
I know these photos look pretty similar, but I wanted you to see that I was pretty generous with the cinnamon sugar. Can you see the change in color?
Lastly, I scooped up the whole thing in my hand and lightly scrunched it into a loose ball.
Seriously, I did nothing special, but see how light and ruffled it looks? This was turning out to be pretty fun – and it was about now that I thought this might even be something to blog about. (Trust me, not every experiment makes it through!)
I repeated this with five more phyllo sheets and placed them on a sheet pan lined with a Silpat (you could also use parchment paper). I didn’t want to heat our home up with a lot of oven heat so I decided to use the small countertop oven we have. This meant using a smaller quarter-sheet pan, about half the size of the normal size you would typically use for baking cookies – so I was only able to fit six phyllo bundles on the pan.
Once they were on the sheet pan, I dabbed just a tiny bit more butter on the tops and added a quick extra sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
The oven was preheated to 350⁰F and I used the convection mode. If you don’t have a convection option (my larger oven does not), I would still keep the heat at 350⁰ because there is a lot of butter on these and things will get smoky quickly if the heat is set too high. I baked them for about 15 minutes. If you don’t use convection, you may need to bake them a little longer, just keep an eye on them. You’re looking for a nice golden brown color.
They came out all golden and crispy and scrumptious looking! I lifted them off with a spatula and set them on a rack that I had lined with a layer of paper towels, just to absorb any extra butter. I wanted the bottoms to stay crispy, not get soggy as they cooled. I had enough phyllo sheets to make four more and added them to cool on the rack with these original six.
While they were cooling, I hulled and halved a bunch of strawberries. I set the strawberries in the center of a platter and surrounded them with the phyllo bundles, sprinkling everything with the lightest dusting of confectioner’s sugar.
So pretty and charming – and it just screams “Summer is finally here!”
