How to...make Honey & Co cheesecake
Chef Sarit Packer shows us how to make a delicious, Middle Eastern twist on the cheesecake, with honey, feta and kadaif pastry
Producer Natalie Whittle. Filmed by Liam McCarthy. Edited by Oliver McGuirk.
Transcript
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I love a good cheesecake. There are so many types of cheesecake out there, so New York classically is a baked cheese cake, sour cream topping, which is delicious. There's a really Eastern European, really fluffy with a lot of whipped egg whites, and it's almost like a souffle. But the one I'm going to do today is a bit of a classic, baked on a kataifi base, which is a pastry that's really crisp and sweet. I love cheesecake. Love it.
So I'm going to start by making a base for the cheesecake. And that I'm using kataifi pastry. And for that, I'm going to melt some butter. But it's really easy to buy this pastry now. It used to be impossible. But now, there's a lot of Middle Eastern grocers, and even online. And I'm going to add butter and sugar to it, because butter and sugar make everything better. And then, I'm just going to mix it all in and massage it all up. Just pull little few clumps out and lay them on a flat tray.
So then they go into the oven, 170, for about 15, 20 minutes until they're beautiful, golden, and crisp. We'll let them cool a bit before we assemble the cakes. So I'm going to mix the cheesecake now, because it doesn't go into the oven, it doesn't bake. There's nothing to stabilise it. It's really important to use a good quality, full-fat cheese. That goes in first. Some double cream. It's not for the fainthearted, this recipe. Icing sugar. The next thing to go in is honey, and it's really important to use a really nice honey here.
And I'm going to put in a vanilla pod, just for flavour. Using the back of the knife, scrape it all the way so all the seeds come out, and all the seeds go into your cake. And then, the last ingredient-- creamy feta. All of the cheese gets crumbled inside. So that's it. All that's left now is to mix it, just enough to get it really nice and creamy. So I'm using a paddle attachment. And it's really important to use a paddle and not a whisk. If you're doing it at home without a machine, you're better off with a spoon and working it. Nice, low speed. Let it thicken, let it become really, really creamy.
So once the mix is really nice and thick, I put it in the fridge until I'm ready to serve. I'm just going to make a quick honey syrup. And this is really just to add a kind of final touch to the cheesecake. A bit more honey goes into the pan. A bit of water to dilute it, onto the stove to boil it. Don't boil it for too long, just a bit to kind of get that firm off.
I'm going to put all the cake together, and I would do this just before serving. Always a little dollop of cream cheese just to stick my base onto the plate. Sprinkle it with a bit of roasted almonds. And then, I'm just going to drizzle it with a bit of that honey syrup.
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It's really nice.
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