Another Leftover Dessert. With Phyllo Pastry Shards.

Might as well get this recipe out of the way since I already posted what happened to the Thing-a-Majing leftovers first time I made it. Now, making it a second time, leftovers were a given so I already had some sort of a plan involving them, this time following an inspiration from Jamie Oliver. There’s some Phyllo pastry leftovers in the freezer, plenty of opportunity to use it and free some space there as well. Call it the lazy cook’s synergy, leftovers calling for leftovers…

Apart from the existing homemade whipped cream, cheese cream and phyllo pastry, we also have raspberries and blueberries for freshness, pistachios for added crunch plus maple syrup and honey for a bit more sweetness and aroma. I want the balance of this dessert to tip slightly on the sweet side, with the good aromas of maple and cardamom providing the lift.

Jamie provided this idea of sticking four phyllo sheets together using a bit of a honey drizzle in between them and putting the pistachios on top to roast at the same time. Genius idea, thanks Jamie!

What do you do when you have a few sheets still left over? Why, fill them with ricotta and thyme, then use the last of the broken sheets in a haphazard ripped decoration over the top, so it doesn’t go to waste.

This is the phyllo pastry after around 20 minutes in the oven preset at 375F. I sat it aside to let it cool off. The pistachios were crushed, but not too much by can do it any way you want as long as the results are coarse.

Yep, them amuse-bouche ricotta pastries baked perfectly along the phyllo. Once slightly cooled off, they sort of disappeared, “melted”away as if they were made of butter. In short they were just perfect, we inhaled them.

The cheese cream was already made semi sweet, but I thought the final balance of the dish requires a bit more sweetness and more maple aroma. About a tablespoon of maple syrup marbled thru is enough to do the trick.

For the final assembly I first poked my fingers thru the phyllo pastry to produce some randomly shaped shards. The cheese cream was evenly split and used as a base, followed by a few fruits then the whipped cream, also equally divided, topped by another handful of fruits. A few “strategically” placed phyllo shards complete the desert. They look a bit “out there” so I’m tempted to show each one individually.

Here’s the first…

…the second…

….and the third. They all look sort of distinct even though the quantities of everything in each are roughly equal. Not boring! And speaking of leftovers, Sandra crushed the remaining shards a little smaller and used them to add interest in our weekly oatmeal breakfasts. One of the great, albeit still rare cases in which we end up using everything! Cool stuff!