Preparation method

Pastry:

• Heat water to 50 C
• Place flour, salt and warm water in a bowl
• Mix until dough starts to come together
• Add oil and vinegar
• Knead dough well for 3-4 minutes
• Shape dough into ball
• Divide dough into 40g pieces
• Dust each piece with corn flour
• Leave to rest for 10 minutes
• Roll a piece of dough into a 20cm circle, using a rolling pin or dowel stick
• Stretch out the dough
• Keep dusting the dough with corn flour
• Dough should be 0.5mm thick
• Cover with a damp cloth
• Repeat this process with the rest of the dough pieces

Cream filling:

• Combine all the ingredients
• Leave to chill until ready to use

Nut filling:

• Chop nuts finely
• Add melted butter, sugar, honey and spices to nuts

Assembly:

• Pre-heat oven to 180 C
• Brush the base of 2 x 20cm round pans with butter
• Cut 20 x 20 cm phyllo circles
• Place 4 pastry circles into each pan
• Brush each layer with butter
• Sprinkle the nut filling over the top layer of phyllo
• Bake at 180 C for 25 minutes
• Remove from the oven
• Drizzle the cold syrup over the hot phyllo layers
• Repeat process until you have 5 sets of 4 pastry layers

Syrup:

• Heat sugar, honey, water and lemon juice
• Boil until syrup thickens
• Remove from heat
• Add in rose water and orange blossom water
• Set aside

Garnish - roses:

• Roll out dough into 10cm x 5cm rectangles
• Fold each rectangle in half, lengthwise, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar
• Starting at one end, roll the pastry to shape a rose
• Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes
• Paint the roses with gold lustre dust

Garnish - phyllo shards:

• Use remaining phyllo pastry and tear into pieces
• Brush well with melted butter
• Bake at 180 C until golden in colour

Garnish - Assembly:

• Place one layer of baked phyllo pastry onto a board
• Pipe the cream cheese filling onto the top of the nuts
• Place the second phyllo pastry layer on top of the cream cheese layer
• Repeat this process until you get to the last layer of phyllo pastry
• Press sliced pistachios onto the sides of the cheesecake
• Decorate the top layer with the phyllo shards, roses, pistachios and dried rose petals