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Cheese and Cherries Strudel

  • 700 g jar pitted cherries, maybe sour or sweet (365g clean weight.) NB: NOT cherry pie filling

  • 1 cup breadcrumbs

  • 1 cup ground walnuts or almonds

  • ½ cup sugar

  • 6 layers filo pastry, de-frosted

  • 90 g unsalted butter, melted

  • Optional: 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, or 1 teaspoon cinnamon

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CHEESE FILLING

  • 250 g / ½ lb farm cheese. You want a firm white curd cheese. Cottage or ricotta cheese are too soft! If you do use ricotta, place in a strainer to drain for a couple of hours first.

  • 1 egg

  • 3  tablespoons sugar

  • pinch of salt

  • 1  tablespoon semolina or breadcrumbs

  • Grated rind of ½  lemon​

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cheeses cherry strudel.jpg
cheeses cherry strudel1.jpg

1.    The day before: remove dough from freezer and put in the fridge. This way it will be ready to use when you want to bake.

2.    Make your cheese filling. Using a spoon, mix all the ingredients together till smooth. Set aside. You will likely have some left over, which you can use for another dish. It makes a great pancake filling!

3.    Melt butter, in a microwave or on a stove top, taking care not to burn. Set aside.

4.    Mix breadcrumbs, sugar and ground nuts in one bowl.

5.    Drain liquid form the cherries and put in a second larger bowl. (Save the drained cherry juice for another use. It is delicious too!)

6.    Add 1 cup of the nut breadcrumb mix to the cherries. Add vanilla or cinnamon, if using. Stir carefully and set aside.

7.    You should have 4 bowls. Melted butter, cheese mix, cherry mix and remaining nut/breadcrumb mix. Now you are ready to “compile”. Before you do, pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F/ 200 degrees C. (Ten degrees less in a fan-forced oven.)

8.    Take your filo sheets out of the fridge. You have to work relatively quickly, as they do tend to dry out. Cover the sheets you are not using with a damp dish towel. It’s easiest to work on a sheet of baking paper, laid out on the tray you plan to bake on. That way when you’re done layering, and folding, it can go straight into the oven.

9.    Lay your first sheet of filo on the baking paper. Take a pastry brush, dip it into the melted butter, and dab a little here and there. You don’t want to oversaturate it, you just want something for the nuts to cling to. Sprinkle with about 1 tablespoon of the nut-breadcrumb mix. Place the next pastry sheet down on top of the one you’ve just done, and repeat. Continue till you’ve used all 6 sheets. Some sheets may break or tear, don’t worry, just keep going.

10. Once you’ve done all 6 layers with the butter and nuts, you’re ready to add the cherries and cheese. First cover with a layer of cherries, leaving a 1 cm space around the edges. Place the cheese on top in a thin layer. You will probably only need about half the cheese mix. Roll up along the long side, like you would a jelly roll. Place the strudel seam side down, tuck in the ends, dab the top with butter and sprinkle with 1-2 tablespoons nut mix.

11.  Slide into pre-heated oven, bake for 25-35 minutes, depending how hot your oven is. Do not slice immediately. Wait for it to cool a little and filling to set. Serve with sieved icing sugar, or plain. Amazing. Will last about 2 days in the fridge.

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