Baklava Cheesecake

This dessert that has been trending for the past few years. It marries two of my favorite things; baklava and cheesecake! I think that they were meant to go together.

The syrup sweetened nutty phyllo becomes the crust, while that cream cheese custard is the filling.

You want to parbake the phyllo till lightly golden before adding the cheesecake filling so that they will bake properly.

Cheesecake takes a few hours to set, so I held off on pouring any syrup until after it sat in the fridge for a few hours so that I would not disturb that process.

If you have made baklava before then you know that cold syrup gets poured over hot baklava. This time I did the opposite. Because the cheesecake needs to cool for at least four hours in the fridge after having sat in the oven with the door ajar for nearly two hours. Clearly you must change strategies here.

Therefore for this dessert I warmed up the syrup and poured it into the cold phyllo crust and let it absorb. This way the cheesecake is not disturbed.

Ingredients:

Cheesecake filling:

3 cream cheese bricks
3 eggs
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cardamom
2 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp rose water
Zest from lemon & juice from 1/2 lemon

Phyllo crust:

10 sheets of phyllo
1 stick of butter

1 cup of chopped mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds, pistachios)

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

2 tbsp ground plain bread crumbs

Syrup:

2 cups sugar

1 cup water

1 cinnamon stick

2 cloves

1 strip of lemon rind

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 tbsp honey

Garnish:

Ground pistachios

edible rose petals

Directions:

Start by melting the butter. Mix the chopped nuts with cinnamon, clove and the breadcrumbs.

In a buttered springform pan, lay out the phyllo sheets, drizzling butter between the sheets. Start with 4 sheets. A layers of nuts. Two sheets with another nut layer, continuing until you have used all 10. Create a border or rim by either cutting away the excess phyllo and making it part of the base. Then gently rolling the tops neatly. Remember that you will need to be able to remove the springform pan and the phyllo needs to remain in tact. I had almost forgotten about that important little detail!

(The extra sheets can just be wrapped up tightly and placed in a ziplock bag, also wrapped tightly and back into the fridge or freezer for later use.)

Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes till lightly golden brown. Let both the phyllo crust and the oven cool down while you prepare the filling.

Mix your filling starting with creaming the cream cheese and sugar. Add in the Greek yogurt, aromatics, salt. When this has gotten smooth, then incorporate the eggs one at a time.

Pour that into the phyllo shell. Bake on the middle rack at 300 F for 90 minutes. (No water bath for this one)

At 90 minutes just turn off the oven and let it cool down along with the oven, with the door slightly ajar.

After two hours, place it in the fridge and let it set for at least four hours or overnight.

Time to make the syrup. Bring the sugar, water, lemon juice and aromatics to a simmer till the liquid is clear and turn off. Stir in the honey.

Remove the cheesecake from the springform pan. Pour the hot syrup down the phyllo spaces and crevices that have formed. Let it soak for a minute and do it again. It’s ok if a little gets on the cheesecake too.

Garnish with ground pistachios and dry edible rose petals.

Kali Oreksi!!!