Bougatsa Chaniotiki-Cheese Phyllo Pastry from Chania

Bougatsa Chaniotiki-Creamy Cheese Phyllo Pastry from Chania is a beloved breakfast treat for visitors and locals alike. The must-try phyllo pie has a crispy buttery crust filled with a mix of cream and myzithra cheese served right out of the oven with a generous sprinkling of sugar.

The sweet and savory delicacy was born at Iordanis, a pastry shop in Chania, in 1924. This is my version of the famous pastry.

If you love this bougatsa recipe, you will also love the cheese pie-tyropita, spinach pie-spanakopita, or this potato-zucchini pie!

When we visit Chania we treat ourselves to bougatsa at Iordanis pastry shop which has been there for almost one hundred years. It is the kind of a place where streams of local people keep coming through the door for take-out.

What is bougatsa Chaniotiki

Bougatsa is a Greek breakfast phyllo pastry. Can be sweet or savory with a filling of custard, cheese, or ground meat between layers of phyllo.

The name bougatsa comes from the Ottoman word “pogátsa“, which means stuffed pie.

Bougatsa Chaniotiki has a filling of tyrogalo aka mizithra cheese. Mizithra is a fresh soft cheese primarily produced on the island of Crete but can be found throughout Greece.

This type of bougatsa has its roots in the Ottomans who lived in Chania for many years, until the beginning of the 20th century. Iordanis’s great grandfather learned the recipe in 1924 and it has become a family tradition since then.

Here is what you need

• Myzithra cheese. It is a Greek whey cheese from sheep or goat’s milk, or both. It is a fresh cheese, similar to Italian ricotta. There is a dry version, used for grating similar to Italian ricotta salata. You can substitute with fresh ricotta mixed with goat cheese. Please check recipe card.
• Staka. This ingredient is optional because it is almost impossible to find outside Crete. Staka is a dairy product, derived from the cream that forms on the surface of goat and sheep milk, immediately after milking. It is heated it, on a low temperature. When it starts to liquefy, salt, flour and a little water are added. The butter is separated, aka stakovoutyro, and the coagulated mass of proteins that remains is the precious staka. It has a wonderful aroma and a whitish or pale yellow color. The taste of staka is strongly milky.
• All-purpose flour, butter and whole milk. To create a sauce similar to bechamel.
• Thin phyllo pastry sheets. Like the ones we use for baklava.

In a small saucepan, in medium heat add the butter (1). Add the flour and stir well until it is well mixed with the butter (2). Next, add the milk and keep stirring continuously to create a velvet semi-thick sauce (3). Remove from heat and mix it with the cheese and staka in a large bowl. Stir until the mixture is creamy and well combined.