Burnt Basque Cheesecake, La Viña, San Sebastián
My best replication of La Viña, San Sebastián cheesecake thus far. Creamy and soft cheesecake, covered with almost-burnt caramelized coating. Step aside food cake, the new Devil is in town.
Servings 12 people
Calories 516kcal
Ingredients
Room Temperature Ingredients:
- 1 kg Philadelphia cream cheese , soften
- 320 g Sugar
- 480 ml Heavy cream
- 5 Large eggs
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 30 g All-purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius fan-assisted. Grease and line a 9-inch springform pan, allowing the parchment papers to cover at least 3 inches above the pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the room temperature cream cheese with a electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add the sugar and salt and beat until the texture of the batter is smooth.
- Add the eggs into the mixture one-by-one and whisk until just incorporated before adding the next egg. Next, add the heavy cream and continue whisking.
- Sift the flour into the mixing bowl and fold it in with a spatula.
- Pour the batter into the pan and bake for around 52-55 minutes in the preheated oven, no longer than 55 minutes - it's ok that the cake is wobbly (read blogpost). Do keep an eye from the 50th-minute onward, making sure that the top of the cheesecake is browned enough. (I like to switch on my oven grill+fan mode on after the 50th minute)
- Remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely, around 2hours. **
Notes
We don't expect cheesecakes to incorporate too much air bubbles. Especially with the higher temperature, the cheesecake will bake & expand too rapidly, which may cause splits / cracks on the side of the cake.
To reduce air bubble intakes, it is always good to avoid over-beating and only mixing to combine the ingredients (unless told otherwise). Besides that, while pouring the batter into the baking pan, run a spatula or butter knife to cut through the batter. Finally, lift the pan about a foot from the counter and drop the pan onto the counter three / four times.
** As mentioned in the blogpost, I recommend that the cheesecake be cooled completely, for at least 2-3 hours. Otherwise, the taste of the cheese will be lost due to the overpowering heat, leaving only a burnt, custard flavour.
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