Something a little different today: a Blueberry Lemon Soufra. What is a soufra, you ask? It’s a Greek and Middle Eastern filo souffle pie. You fill the pie dish with buttered filo dough layers, folded or ruffled together, toast in the oven before pouring/ladling on custard. They can be savory (skip the sugar and vanilla in the custard) with spinach and feta or walnuts for example, or sweet as in this one with lemon and blueberries, or dates and walnuts, or any fruit or even chocolate chips. I made it for brunch (and truth be told, added some maple syrup over the top), but also would be a nice breakfast or lunch. Tastes best right out of the oven, and eaten the same day for sure.
Ingredients
1-pound package frozen filo pastry, thawed (you might not use all of it, I used all but 4 sheets)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
Zest of 2 lemons
1/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1 cup unsalted butter, melted
powdered sugar, for dusting
You will also need a 10-inch spring form pan or deep pie dish
Directions
Before you begin this filo pastry recipe, take your filo pastry out of the fridge to bring it up to room temperature in its packaging. Preheat your oven to 350F.
Combine heavy cream, milk, sugar, eggs and lemon zest into a mixing bowl and whisk until well combined. Set aside.
Lay one sheet of filo pastry onto your workspace, with the short side of the filo pastry facing you. Brush with butter and lay a second sheet of filo pastry on top. Using your fingers, fold the pastry in a ruffled design — I just pulled my index fingers toward my thumb and it “ruffled” for me. Transfer the folded filo pastry to the center of the baking pan and begin to coil it in the middle to resemble a rose. Repeat with the remaining filo pastry, placing it around the center rose until the tray is full.
Brush the filo pastry with the remaining melted butter and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until lightly golden. slowly our or ladel the custard over the baked filo pastry evenly then scatter the blueberries all over, pushing some of them down into the filo pastry. I saw slowly as you want the custard to slide in all those filo layers and it will take a bit for it to all soak in.
Transfer the pan back into the oven and bake for approximately 35 minutes and golden. Don’t be surprised if it poofs up quite a but like a souffle; as it cools, it will recede a bit (although poofed up isn’t bad either). Remove the Soufra from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes before sprinkling powdered sugar over the top.
