The simplest things in life don’t need to be boring, a creamy light cheesecake filled with delicious vanilla, the perfect dessert for those looking for a crowd pleaser or catering for the indecisive.

What’s a Basque Cheesecake?

A basque cheesecake, also known as a burnt cheesecake, is a traditionally Spanish cheesecake that is cooked at a high temperature so the outside of the cake burns or gets toasted while the inside stays jiggly. The high temperature short cooking time method gives the outside a caramel almost bitter like exterior and an extremely creamy and light centre. This cake originated in the North of Spain 80s and became really popular in the 2000s when a lot of tourists started doing tapas/pintxos tours and discovered this wonderful dessert.

So, what’s in it?

As I said, we’re going for something simple here, the beauty of this cheesecake is not only the fact that you have to intentionally burn it, I mean, who doesn’t like that?! But it also requires very little ingredients and it’s super quick to make. All you’ll need is:

• Cream cheese
• Double cream
• Sugar
• Vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• Eggs
• Flour

A few tips for success

1. Make sure your cream cheese is at room temperature – cold cream cheese can make things lumpy, so it’s best to take it out of the fridge an hour before it’ll be used.
2. Sieve your flour  – I know it’s not a lot of flour, but believe me, if you don’t do it it will be lumpy and it will force you to over mix.
3. Allow cooling time – cooling time is almost as important at cooking time. The cheesecake won’t be set when you take it out of the oven, so you need to give it time for that to happen. When my cheesecake was done, I left it in the oven with the door slightly open for 15 minutes, then, I allowed it to come to room temperature and cooled it in the fridge for 2 hours before demolding.
4. Undercook – this is possible the most important thing. Basque Cheesecakes don’t set in the oven, they set afterwards, so it will be super giggly when you take it out. Don’t worry, it will set as it cools down.
5. Use a deep baking tin – this is also very important as the cake rises quite a lot in the oven, if your tin is not deep enough, your cake may spill all over your oven.

Vanilla Basque Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 600 gr of cream cheese at room temperature
• 4 eggs
• 200 gr of granulated sugar plus some extra to sprinkle
• 300 gr of double (heavy) cream
• 2 tbsp of vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• 40 gr of flour

Method:

1. Preheat the oven and 200 degrees celsius and line an 18 cm springform baking dish with baking paper making sure it goes over the edges.
2. In a bowl, cream the cream cheese using a spatula or a hand mixer until creamy. Then, add in the eggs one a time time beating after each addition. For this you can keep using a hand mixer or use a whisk.
3. Mix in the sugar until combined, make sure you don’t over mix so you don’t add extra air into your cheesecake.
4. Add in the double cream and vanilla bean paste and mix again.
5. Sieve in the flour and mix until just combined. It’s important that you sieve the flour, otherwise it’ll be lumpy and you’ll add too much air to your cheesecake.
6. Cook in the oven for 50 to 55 minutes until the top is toasted and the middle is still wiggly. If the top of your cheesecake is not toasted enough, you can turn on your grill and cook it for a bit longer.
7. Once ready, allow to sit in the oven (turned off) for 5 minutes with the door open, then take it out and allow it to come to room temperature. Once at room temperature, store in the fridge overnight, do not take it out of the mould until it has been int he fridge overnight.
8. NOTE: you can brûlée slices of this cheesecake by covering them in sugar and torching them until toasted, please make sure you take the necessary precautions while doing this!