Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Serves: 16-20 cigars

1 cup caster sugar

1¼ cups water, divided

1 cinnamon stick

5 cloves

500 g Perfect Italiano Ricotta

100 g icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted

1 orange, zest

½ whole nutmeg, finely grated

1 tablespoon vanilla essence

1 egg

200 g unsalted butter

375 g chilled filo pastry

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius fan-forced.

Start with the syrup, place caster sugar, 1 cup water, cinnamon stick and cloves in a small pot and place over low-medium heat. Bring everything up to a simmer and allow to bubble for 10 seconds, before taking off heat. Pour in remaining ¼ cup water and place in freezer to chill faster, but not freeze.

For the filling, in a big bowl add in ricotta, sifted icing sugar, orange zest, nutmeg, vanilla essence and egg and mix together with a spoon until smooth. Place in fridge until ready to use.

Prep filo pastry by cleaning a large bench space. Melt butter, line a rectangular deep baking dish with baking paper, and brush butter onto the bottom. On the bench surface lay out as many filo pastry sheets as you can fit, brush each with a little bit of butter so it’s covered but not drenched. Then fold in half across the longer side so you have a thin long rectangle. Brush with butter, before adding two heaped tablespoons worth of ricotta filling on the bottom of the pastry. Roll up on itself creating a cigar shape (cylindrical) until the filling is in the middle and the pastry shell is rolled upon itself. Line up into the baking tray and continue process until baking tray is filled or you run out of filo/filling. You want the cigars to fit snug in the baking dish.

Brush the tops with remaining butter and then place into oven and cook for 30 minutes, or until deeply golden brown. Once baked and caramelised, take out of oven and pour the chilled syrup over the hot pastry and allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving up.