Gibanica (cheese bread)

Serves 8 Prep time 30 minutes
Cook time 1 hour

4 eggs, separated
225g butter
900g cottage cheese or feta cheese or a combination of both
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp soda water
450g phyllo pastry, thawed or 20 pcs of
Chinese spring roll pastry

garnish
1 cup sour cream

• Mix egg yolk with cheese and melted butter. Add salt.
• Beat egg whites until foamy and fold mixture into cheese. Stir in soda water.
• Grease a 9 by 13 inches baking pan and line the bottom of the pan with two phyllo pastry sheets. Reserve two phyllo sheets for the top layer.
• Spread cheese filling on top of pastry.
• Dip the remaining leaves, one by one, into the cheese mixture until the sheet is completely soaked.
• Remove the sheet and while doing so, crumple up the phyllo a little and take some of the filling with it. Transfer this to the baking pan, with the cheese filling spread out on top of phyllo sheet.
• Repeat procedure with the rest of the sheets.
• If there is leftover filling, pour it into the pan and smooth it over the top.
• Cover with the last two pastry sheets and brush the top with a little butter. Ensure that the pan is completely covered with the pastry.
• Bake uncovered in a 175°C oven for an hour.
• Let it cool to room temperature. Cut into squares and serve with sour cream or plain yoghurt.

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