Amerikanska Banitza

Elena is kind enough to let me post in her food blog. I'm an American girl who is married to a Bulgarian. I will post many things, but I'd say for now it will predominantly be my attempts at recreating Bulgarian dishes my husband and I will miss here in America. :) I'm doing my best to learn to cook them for us, from memory and with some help from his mom and Elena. This is MY version of TIKVENIK or Pumpkin Banitza. This is NOT the traditional recipe, though the idea is similar.

Amerikanska Banitza (Tikvenik)

What you will need:

Small circular baking pan
1 package of phyllo dough (Make sure it is completely thawed before you unroll it or it will break!)
1 pie pumpkin
1-1.5 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 - 1 cup vegetable oil
cooking spray or melted butter
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice)

First you will want to take your phyllo dough out of the freezer. It takes 2 hours to thaw. In the mean-time you can peel and shred your pumpkin. Or you can bake the damn thing and save yourself an hour of shredding! If you bake it, cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, and cover each side with foil. I bake at 350 for 1-1.5 hours. Then scoop out the cooked pumpkin with a spoon once it cools. If you shred it raw, you probably will not need to shred it all. A few cups will be more than enough for 2 small banitzas. I used the small side of the grater, which is fairly masochistic but I'll try it shredded larger next time and tell you how it does. When you have the pumpkin in one form or another then, you should mix the brown sugar and vegetable oil in a saucepan over low heat. Mix until the sugar is thoroughly wet but not melted, then add the pumpkin and mix well. Mostly the heat is just to help the sugar melt, you are not cooking the pumpkin. Then sprinkle in the pumpkin pie spice and pecans and mix again. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Then you can very slowly unwrap your phyllo. I messed this up and my phyllo ended up broken, so I used what I had. You take your first sheet and put it on a flat surface. You will need to cover your other sheets with plastic wrap with a moist towel on top like the package says or it will dry out and be useless. Spray your phyllo sheet thoroughly with cooking spray or brush carefully with melted butter according to the directions. Then use about 2 tablespoons of the pumpkin mixture and spread randomly around the sheet. Carefully roll up the sheet lengthwise so you have a long roll. Spray your pan with cooking spray and lay the sheet along the edge and work your way in with more rolls until you fill the pan.

Then just for good measure I brushed the top with more butter.

Bake until the top is golden brown. Then sprinkle with water and cover with a towel to cool.

Pictures from top to bottom:
*Cleaned pumpking waiting to be peeled and shredded
*Pumpkin, sugar, oil, pecan and spice filling for the banitza.
*Phyllo sheet with pumpkin filling spread on it, waiting to be rolled and placed in pan.
*Pan filled with phyllo rolls, ready to be baked (Notice that some of my rolls are breaking...this is because I did NOT let my phyllo dough thaw properly! Don't make my mistake, lol.)