Spinach and Feta Puff Pastry Pinwheels

Squeezing spinach completely dry is critical - wet spinach makes soggy pastry. The cream cheese helps bind the filling and adds richness. Chilling the log makes clean slicing much easier. Use a sharp serrated knife for cleanest cuts. These can be served warm or at room temperature.

Spanakopita — the Greek spinach and feta phyllo pie — has been a fixture of Greek cooking for centuries, with phyllo pastry itself having roots in the Ottoman Empire and earlier Turkish baking traditions that spread through the Greek-speaking world during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Phyllo (from the Greek word for leaf) is documented in Turkish and Balkan cookbooks from at least the 15th century. The combination of spinach (introduced to the Mediterranean from Persia via Arab traders around the 9th century CE), fresh herbs, eggs, and feta cheese reflects the Greek culinary tradition of combining dairy with greens in pastry — a preparation well suited to both the Mediterranean climate and Greek Orthodox fasting practices, which allowed dairy and vegetables but not meat. Feta cheese, made from sheep's milk in Greece, received EU Protected Designation of Origin status in 2002, restricting the name to cheese made in specific Greek regions. The puff pastry adaptation of spanakopita — substituting French laminated butter pastry for phyllo — emerged in American catering from the 1990s onward as frozen puff pastry sheets made the preparation accessible to home cooks without phyllo experience. The pinwheel format was adopted for party service specifically, displaying the green filling in an attractive spiral cross-section.