Prize winning baklava cheesecake

This cheesecake came top in the JC’s recent cheesecake tasting. The cream cheese party was mild and smooth — perfectly contrasted with the crunchy layers of honeyed nuts and crisp filo.

It — and all the cheesecakes tasted — are to be included in a charity cookbook to be published in aid of Chai Cancer Care. If you want to know how to get involved wtih this project – whether you have a winning recipe that you’d like to share or can recommend a fantastic cheesecake recipe, click here. 

Note, this cake needs to be prepared a day ahead.

Anne Iarchy writes:

If you’re a lover of baklava and cheese cake, this cake is for you. I like to use Polish cream cheese as opposed to Philadelphia as it’s slightly smoother. You can adapt the sweetness of the cake by adding the full amount or slightly less of the simple sugar. The rose petals do add that special flavour as well as colour.

Ingredients:

For the sugar syrup:
120ml water

120g caster or granulated sugar
For the cake:
10 sheets of filo pastry

120g unsalted butter, melted

150g crushed pistachio kernels

12g caster sugar

500g cream cheese

200g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

225g double cream

1 tbsp vanilla

25g flour

Handful of rose petals

You will need a 20cm (8”) spring form tin

Method:

• To make the simple syrup: dissolve the sugar in the water while heating over a low heat in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Bring to a boil then switch off the heat, pour the syrup into a heatproof bowl and leave to cool. You will not need all of it. The leftover syrup can be poured into a clean lidded jar and stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks.
• Line the bottom and sides of your spring form tin with parchment paper
• Heat oven to 175°C.
• Brush butter generously on 8 sheets of filo pastry and layer them across one another horizontally and vertically to cover the base and sides of the tin. Cover the sides with the pastry as well.
• Bake for 10 minutes.
• Remove a handful of crushed pistachios and set aside. Mix the rest with 12g sugar and a tablespoon of the melted butter in a small bowl.
• In a stand mixer (or with a hand mixer) cream the sugar and cheese until soft, add the eggs one by one and the vanilla until well combined. Add the flour and the whipping cream and mix.
• On the baked base, add the pistachio mix and press down on the pastry.
• Pour the cream cheese mixture on top. Pour it as much as you can into the centre of the pastry base, as it can tend to seep out of the sides..
• Crinkle the remaining 2 filo pastry sheets and press them onto the cream cheese mixture.
• Brush with more of the melted butter.
• Bake for 50 minutes until nice and golden.
• Once out of the oven, drizzle with 60ml of the cooled simple syrup and sprinkle the rose petals and remaining pistachios.
• Let cool at room temperature then place in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight.
  
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