The BEST Baklava Cheesecake
This baklava cheesecake is made with a baklava crust, filled with a creamy and lemony filling, topped with honey syrup and pistachios.
Ingredients
Crust
- 20 sheets Phyllo dough thawed
- ½ cup Butter melted, unsalted
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 cup Pecans toasted, unsalted, chopped
- ½ cup Pistachios toasted, unsalted, chopped
- ¼ cup Granulated sugar
Cheesecake filling
- 19.7 oz Cream cheese room temp, full fat
- ½ cup Sour cream
- 2 teaspoon Lemon zest
- 2 tablespoon Lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 1 cup Granulated sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1 Egg yolk
- 2 tablespoon Cornstarch
Honey syrup
- ¼ cup Honey
- ⅓ cup Granulated sugar
- ½ cup Water
- 1 tablespoon Lemon juice
Instructions
- Prepare a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper, and preheat an oven to 180c (350f).
- In a small mixing bowl, add the chopped pistachios, walnuts, sugar, vanilla extract, and cinnamon, and mix until well combined.
- Brush the bottom of the parchment paper lined pan with a thin layer of melted butter.
- Layer 5 sheets of phyllo sheets into the pan allowing the sides to hang over the edges. Brush the dough generously with melted butter.
- Sprinkle about two tablespoons of the nut mixture on the dough evenly.
- Top the nuts with another 3 layers of phyllo sheets, brush it with butter, and repeat, do this 3 more times, and finally top it with another 4 sheets of phyllo sheets, and brush them with butter.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the softened cream cheese, lemon zest vanilla extract, sugar, lemon juice, sour cream and mix with an electric hand mixer until is creamy.
- Whisk the eggs in a small bowl add them to the cheesecake mixture and mix until the mixture is smooth.
- Sift the cornstarch into the mixture and mix until combined and there are no lumps of cornstarch showing. Do not overmix the batter.
- Pour the cheesecake filling over the phyllo crust.
- Fold over the phyllo dough that is hanging out of the pan and brush it with the leftover melted butter.
- Bake it in a 140c (280f) preheated oven for about an hour or until the edges of the cheesecake are set, but the middle is a bit jiggly and the phyllo dough is golden brown.
- While the cheesecake is baking, make the honey syrup. In a medium saucepan, add the sugar, honey, water, vanilla extract, and lemon juice and cook over medium-high heat mixing constantly until the sugar melts.
- Then reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for another 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it cool.
- As soon as the cheesecake comes out of the oven, pour the honey syrup over the baked phyllo dough and let it chill in the fridge for at least 5 hours to allow the cheesecake to set.
- Garnish with chopped pistachios and serve!
Notes
- Make sure that you are using room-temperature cream cheese in this recipe, this step makes it easier to mix the cream cheese with no unnecessary lumps, we don’t want that.
- Let the phyllo dough defrost in the fridge overnight. This will make sure that your phyllo dough is fully defrosted.
- When you are buttering the phyllo dough sheets, make sure that you are super careful and gently butter it to prevent it from ripping.
- Use a springform tin. We use springform tins for all of our cheesecake recipes. This makes sure that your cake will be easy to release from the pan.
- Use high-fat cream cheese or the well-known Philadelphia cream cheese. Using full-fat cream cheese ensures that your cheesecake will be stable and will not crack.
- Let your cheesecake chill in the fridge for at least 5 hours. We know it’s very hard to resist eating this delicious cheesecake right away, but you have to let the cheesecake cool and set it in the pan. I like to let the cheesecake sit in the fridge overnight.
- For a smooth and creamy cheesecake, make sure that you are using room-temperature ingredients. Before you begin to make this cheesecake, make sure that your cream cheese is completely soft, and that your eggs are at room temperature.
- Don’t overbeat the mixture! It's really easy to overbeat the mixture, and that is one of the most common mistakes. To avoid overbeating your mixture, make sure that you lower the speed of the hand mixer and add each egg at a time.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl frequently to ensure that you have a homogeneous mixture that has no cream cheese lumps.
- Don't open the oven door before the cake is fully baked or about to be baked! Drastic changes in the temperature of the cake while baking can cause the cake to collapse or crack.
Nutrition
Calories: 691kcalCarbohydrates: 67gProtein: 10gFat: 44gSaturated Fat: 20gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 15gTrans Fat: 0.4gCholesterol: 140mgSodium: 450mgPotassium: 250mgFiber: 3gSugar: 42gVitamin A: 1212IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 98mgIron: 2mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!