Cheesecake
This recipe makes a 24cm cheesecake (a sprimgform works well), about 6cm high. I recommend adding a topping or a coulis, a suggestion is listed below.
It is recommended to have a powerful blender, a handmixer is probably a little bit too light to properly blend the cream cheese.
If you have a large enough baking tray, you can bake this cake in a water bath by wrapping your baking pan in tinfoil (avoid water leaking in), filling the tray with boiling water and then baking it as normal.
- 250 g dry cookies (graham crackers, speculoos, …)
- 80 g butter
- optional: 25 g brown sugar
- preheat the oven to 175°C
- line the baking pan with baking paper
- crumble the cookies, you can do this by hand but a blender makes light work of this
- melt the butter in a pan (do not brown the butter)
- mix the butter and the cookie crumble, knead a little with your hands
- optional: add in the brown sugar
- make a bowl-ish shape in your baking pan
- bake for 15 minutes at 175°C
- 680 g crean cheese (unflavoured)
- 150 g white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 15 g corn starch
- 80 g heavy cream
- preheat the oven to 150 °C
- let the cream cheese come to room temperature
- soften the cream cheese in a blender
- add in the sugar, blend thoroughly
- add the eggs one by one, blend at a low speed, make sure everything is incorporated well
- add in the corn starch, continue blending until incorporated
- add in the heavy cream and stop blending as soon as it is all combined
- optional: add flavouring to the mixture, the list below works well
- zest of half a lemon and juice of half a lemon
- zest of half an orange and juice of half an orange
- vanilla extract
- vanilla extract and tiny chocolate chunks (not chips)
- melt 100 g dark chocolate and add it to the heavy cream
- optional: prepare a tray with a water bath for baking
- bake for 60 to 90 minutes, the sides should be all set and the center should be jiggly (not liquid)
- stop the oven and let the cake cool down with the oven door open
- let it cool further on a rack until at room temperature
- chill in the fridge overnight (about 12 hours)
For the topping, any fruit coulis works well. Or you can pour a ganache over the top of the cake.
Below is a simple peach coulis.
- 500 g peaches (frozen is fine)
- 50 g white sugar
- 15 g lemon juice
- add everything to a small pot and stir
- bring to a boil (takes about 5 minutes)
- simmer for 20 minutes at medium heat
- remove from the stove and let it cool down before serving