Sweet Cheese Accordion Pastry
Phyllo folded like a fan over sweetened cheese and raisins, baked in a dutch oven.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 76
- protein
- 13 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 100 ml cold
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Breakfast
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Thin phyllo pastry sheets | 7 sheets | the flat kind, not puff pastry |
|---|---|---|
| Eggs | 3 | |
| Butter, melted | 50 g | |
| Sugar | 4-6 tbsp | |
| Sparkling mineral water | 100 ml | |
| Greek yogurt | 4 tbsp | |
| Sour cream | 4 tbsp | |
| Farmer cheese or dry curd cheese | 450 g | |
| Lemon zest | from 1 lemon | |
| Vanilla sugar | 1 packet | or 1 tsp vanilla extract plus a spoon of sugar |
| Raisins | 100 g |
Method
- Get coals going. You want a bed hot enough to sit under and on top of a 10 or 12 inch dutch oven.
- Beat the eggs, yogurt, sour cream, mineral water, melted butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, and lemon zest together in a bowl. It should pour.
- Lay out one phyllo sheet. Scatter cheese and raisins across it, thin and even. Fold it back and forth on itself along the long edge, like closing a fan, into a long ruffled rope.
- Coil that rope into the greased dutch oven. Repeat with the remaining six sheets, packing each new coil against the last until the bottom is covered.
- Pour the egg mixture over everything. Wait a couple of minutes and press the pastry down so it drinks the liquid.
- Lid on, roughly 8 coals underneath and 16 on top. Bake 35 to 45 minutes, rotating the pot and the lid a quarter turn every 10 minutes.
- Done when the top is set and browned and the center no longer wobbles. Let it cool 15 minutes before cutting or it falls apart.
This is car-camping food, not pack food. Phyllo, fresh cheese, and three eggs need a cooler and a dutch oven, and there is no honest way to shrink that down to a pot on a canister stove.
The accordion fold is the whole point. Folding each sheet back on itself instead of layering flat leaves gaps everywhere, and those gaps are what the egg and dairy mixture soaks into. Layered flat, the custard sits on top and the pastry underneath stays dry. The mineral water thins the mixture so it runs into the folds instead of pooling, and the pressing step after pouring is not optional. Bottom heat browns the base too fast in a dutch oven, so keep most of the coals on the lid.
Packing
Cheese, eggs, butter, yogurt, and sour cream all ride in the cooler, cheese in a rigid container so it does not get crushed. Phyllo goes in a flat box on top of the load, not under it. Zest the lemon at home into the sugar and it keeps fine in a jar.
Variations
- Dried cranberries or chopped dried apricots in place of the raisins.
- No dutch oven: build it in a foil pan, cover tight with foil, and set it on a grill grate over low coals with a second pan inverted on top.
- Skip the mineral water and use 100 ml of milk if you have it in the cooler. The bubbles only help the custard lift a little.
https://www.bucatarmaniac.ro/2026/03/placinta-creata-cu-branza-si-stafide-reteta-dulce-rapida-cu-foi-de-placinta.html