Phyllo (or filo) is an unleavened type of pastry with flaky sheets as thin as tissue paper, used in dishes like baklava, borek, and spanakopita. Because of the work needed to make it from scratch, many cooks buy premade phyllo dough from the store, but you can successfully make it at home if you have the right ingredients.

You need patience, rigorous rolling, and a specific kind of flour to make successful phyllo at home. Despite being a pastry, phyllo dough should be made with bread flour, since this flour has a high protein and gluten content that keeps the dough sturdy, even as it's stretched into a large sheet, then turned into fragile layers.

If you were to use any other flour, like all-purpose or cake flour, your phyllo dough would be more prone to ripping or simply unable to keep its shape, and the texture would be off. Bread flour gives phyllo dough its signature crispy crunch once it's baked, and keeps the layers of pastry separate using strong gluten bonds.