Go Back

Galaktoboureko

Greek Custard Pie
Print Recipe
Course Dessert
Cuisine Greek

Ingredients
  

Custard

  • 6 cups whole milk
  • 1 cup fine semolina
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup sugar, divided into 1/2 and 1/4 cups
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • zest of 1 orange see notes below

Top and bottom phyllo layers

  • 1 pound phyllo dough (1 package usually = 1 pound)
  • 1 cup melted, unsalted butter see notes below

Syrup

  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 cup orange juice see notes below
  • 1 small stick cinnamon, optional not optional
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 350 F

Custard

  • Heat the milk and 1/4 cup sugar in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Do not let it boil.
  • In a bowl, whisk the 1/2 cup of sugar, cornstarch, semolina, and salt.
  • In a large bowl, beat the eggs until fully combined.
  • Beat in the semolina mixture, and keep beating. After 3 minutes, it should be thick and pale yellow.
  • Bring the milk to just below a boil, then reduce to low heat.
  • Slowly add 1/4 cup of the milk at a time to the egg mixture, while constantly whisking (or beating on slow speed with a hand mixer) . Do this until you have added 2 cups of milk. There should be no clumps.
  • Stir in the egg mixture into the milk and cook over medium-low heat while constantly stirring.
  • Once this comes to a boil, it's done cooking and should be at a perfect consistency.
  • Remove from heat.
  • Stir in the butter, vanilla, and orange zest.
  • Let cool at least 10 minutes before pouring.

Assembly

  • Brush the bottom of a 10x13 casserole dish/baking pan with butter.
  • Layer the bottom with 1/2 the phyllo, one (or two) sheet at a time, and brush each sheet with butter. Half the butter should be used in this step.
  • Let the sheets hang over the edge, we'll clean this up later.
  • Pour the custard, and spread evenly across the baking dish.
  • Take the overhanging phyllo, and fold that over the custard (or you can trim with scissors just a little above the top of the custard).
  • Brush the top of the phyllo with butter.
  • Layer the remaining phyllo on top, brushing each layer with butter.
  • Tuck the excess phyllo between the bottom later and the side of the baking dish.
  • Score the top of the pie (yes it's a pie, deal with it), into the desired amount of pieces.

Baking time

  • Bake in a preheated oven 30-45 minutes, until golden brown. Check after 25 minutes, and then every 5 minutes.

Syrup

  • Bring all the ingredients except the vanilla to a boil in a saucepan on medium heat.
  • Let boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.
  • Stir in the vanilla.

Final step

  • After removing the pie from the oven, let cool for 15 minutes.
  • Cut all the way down to the bottom of each piece.
  • Slowly pour the syrup across the entire top.
  • Let sit at least 1 hour before serving.
  • Refrigerate any leftovers (lol) up to 3 days.

Notes

Ideally, the melted butter is clarified, and there's 2 ways to do this. Start with 1 1/4 cups of butter, slowly melt, and here's the 2 different versions:
  1. Let it melt completely, once it comes to a gentle boil, skim the milk solids off the top, and pour the golden butterfat into a separate container, and avoid letting any of the white stuff from the bottom pour in.
  2. Let it melt completely, let it come to a gentle boil, and let it keep boiling until it stops. This means the water is all gone, and by now the milk solids have sunk to the bottom. Strain through a cheesecloth or coffee filter.
Notes
  • Gala = milk
  • Boureki = a small pie
  • You can use lemon instead of orange. I guess you could use any citrus, and I've often about grapefruit & cardamom instead of orange.
  • Some versions separate the eggs, and the whites are whipped into a meringue, and folded into the custard. This eliminates the majority of any eggy flavour, but I feel this is not worth the effort.
  • Worshippers of Diabeetus might want to double the amount of syrup. I think that's excessive, but some people have more of a sweet tooth than I do.
  • In general, we should add cold syrup to hot pastry. This helps keep the phyllo crisp.