A creamy and light vanilla cheesecake cooked over layers upon layers of thin crispy filo pastry and salty and sweet honey pistachios. The combination of both flavours and textures makes for the perfect dessert.

Baklava Cheesecake

If I have to be honest, Baklavas came into my life a lot later than I wish they had, but there’s been no looking bad since and I guess better late than never, right? I’ve always been a big fan of cheesecakes, they are one of my favourite dessert, first because they are obviously delicious, but also because they are so incredibly versatile! So because of this, it just made sense to make a Baklava Cheesecake. I’ll be honest, this one was one of those recipes that I had to test quite a few times before getting right, there’s quite a lot of things to take into account when making it, trying to make sure the filo and the pistachios don’t burn while the cheesecake remains cooked was definitely the main one.

So, what’s in it?

I won’t lie to you, this cheesecake does take longer to make than a “normal” one, and it also requires more ingredients. That said, the result definitely pays off and the reward is so so worth it. This is all you’ll need:

• Phyllo pastry
• Pistachios
• Walnuts
• Pecans
• Honey
• Butter
• Cream cheese
• Greek yoghurt
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Lemon juice
• Granulated sugar
• Flour

A few tips for success

• Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature – I cannot even start to tell you how important this is, particularly when it comes to cream cheese. Room temperature ingredients are softer, which means they combine quicker, which means less air, which means a creamier cheesecake.
• Use medium eggs – lately I have really been obsessing over egg sizes, it’s actually amazing how much they change the consistency of desserts. For this cheesecake, I recommend medium eggs so it stays thick, larger eggs will work, but they’ll make your cheesecake runnier and it’ll need to cook for longer.
• Keep your phyllo pastry in the bag until ready to use, then cover with butter – phyllo pastry dries very quickly, and once it’s dry it’ll be impossible to work with. To avoid any waste, make sure you keep it in the bag or box that comes in until you are ready to use it and cover it with butter to keep it moist.

Baklava Cheesecake

Ingredients:

For the base:

• 10 sheets of phyllo pastry
• 150 gr of pistachios, finely chopped
• 30 gr of walnuts, finely chopped
• 30 gr of pecans, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp and 1/2 of honey
• 100 gr of melted butter

For the cheesecake:

• 400 gr of cream cheese at room temperature
• 40 gr of greek yoghurt at room temperature
• 3 medium eggs  
• 120 gr of granulated sugar 
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp vanilla extract 
• 20 gr of plain flour 

For the syrup:

• 100 gr of granulated sugar
• 80 gr of honey
• 60 ml of water
• 1 small cinnamon stick
• 1 small lice of lemon skin peeled from a fresh lemon

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees celsius (no fan).
2. Start by making the cheesecake. In a bowl, cream together the cream cheese and sugar, I do this using a spatula, if your cream cheese is at room temperature, it should be really easy to do. Once the sugar is incorporated into the cream cheese, beat in the eggs, one at a time mixing after each addition until just combined.
3. Mix in the greek yoghurt, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Then, sieve in the flour, this will avoid lumps and overmixing. Mix until just combined. Set aside.
4. Let’s move onto the base. In a bowl, mix in the chopped pistachios, pecans, walnuts and the honey. When chopping your nuts, make sure you don’t chop them so much that they turn into a paste, they also don’t all have to be the same size.
5. Grease an 18 cm spring form cake tin with plenty of butter, making sure you also grease the sides all the way to the top. Begin layering the first 5 sheets of phyllo pastry: place the first sheet so it covers the whole bottom of the tin and folds over the sides; brush it with butter everywhere and then cover it with another sheet of phylo pastry and butter again, repeat this process until you have placed all 5 sheets of phyllo pastry making sure you brush every sheet with butter. The sheets of phylo pastry will cover the bottom of your baking tin, but they won’t be big enough to cover all of the sides, so make sure you place them in different positions so they cover any clear space, by the time you finish doing this first layer of phylo sheets your whole baking tin should be covered in phyllo (see picture above for easier understanding).
6. After you have placed the 5th sheet and brushed it with butter, sprinkle half of the nut and honey mix over it and carefully press it down into an even layer.
7. Take the other 5 sheets of phylo and cut them in half. Repeat the process as before, lay one sheet on top of the other making sure you brush each of them with butter before adding another one on top. Your sheets are now smaller, so they won’t overhang so much but will still come more or less to the top of your baking tin. Once you have laid 5 more, sprinkle the remaining nuts and press them down carefully. Then, top with the remaining 5 phyllo sheets making sure once again that you brush each of them with butter.
8. Pour the cheesecake mix over the unbaked phyllo crust. Presentation is your choice, I took some of the long sides and placed them on top of the cheesecake leaving a gap in the middle so I could see it cooking, then, I trimmed any excess phyllo making sure it was levelled with the top of the pan. It may look a bit messy when you do it (see picture above), but it’ll look beautiful once it’s golden. Brush the phyllo on top with extra butter.
9. Bake the cheesecake in the oven for 50 to 55 minutes rotating it half way through, the phyllo should be golden and the cheesecake still be wobbly in the middle. If your phyllo starts getting too brown, cover with kitchen foil until it’s ready.
10. Once ready, turn the oven off and open the oven door slightly, leave the cheesecake in the turned off oven for 15-20 minutes. While this is happening, make the syrup: in a pot cook all the ingredients over medium heat stirring regularly until the sugar has dissolved, allow to boil for approximately 6 to 7 minutes until it has reduced to the consistency of runny honey. Once ready, remove the cinnamon stick and lemon.
11. Take the cheesecake out of the oven (it should still be warm) and pour the syrup over it focusing on the sides and not just the exposed middle, make sure you do this quickly as the syrup will continue to thicken up as it cools down. Let it cool to room temperature and then store in the fridge to set overnight. Decorate with more crushed pistachios if desired.