Phyllo Dough for Italian Dessert Tartlets

Video Transcript

"Now, we're going to move on to actually making the little tartlets using the pastry sheets. You will need a muffin pan. These aren't technically tarts tartlets today. They require a different pan, but that's what I've named them and I'm the one making them, so they're tartlets today. You just need a muffin pan. This is a pretty normal sized muffin pan. I like to use the mini ones as well. You can go either way. Obviously they'll be different sized tartlets, whatever floats your boat. This is a regular sized muffin pan, maybe slightly smaller than a larger pan. You can use whatever size muffin pan you want to use, depending on how large or small you want your little tartlets to be. The mini ones are really cute. I've made those too. This is a fairly normal size, whatever floats your boat. Whichever size you want to use. You need a muffin pan. You need some cooking spray and your Phyllo dough, the most important part. This comes in long sheets. You'll find it in the freezer section of your grocery store. It is paper, paper thin pastry sheets. It is very delicate, actually. It's found in the freezer section. Before you start to handle it or work with it, you're going to want to thaw it out. You can leave it at room temperature or maybe even in the refrigerator over night would be good. Let it thaw out, because you need to be able to unfold it like I'm doing and work with it a little bit. It is very delicate. However, if you let it thaw too much, especially at room temperature, it will dry out. Then it cracks because it's paper thin. I'll show you in a second. It will dry out, so timing is everything. Once you get used to it, it's not hard. This is thawed and I'm just going to unroll or unfold it and I'll show you how thin each sheet is. See how thin that is? Very, very thin. A couple holes, you'll see a couple holes, a couple tears, don't even worry about it. It's normal, it's a pastry sheet. It's actually just the perfect temperature and the perfect level of moisture. If it starts to get too dry, what you can do is get a very, very, very damp towel or paper towel and lay it on top of the ones you're not working with yet, to keep them a little bit moist. Be careful, if they get too wet, then they will stick together."