The first time I ever set eyes on a Basque Cheesecake was at Maria (Tikya) Tanzi's house several years ago. I was intrigued because the top looked like it had burned. However, I was told that that was deliberate and that it was baked that way in the Basque region of Spain.
Mise en place
I do remember that Tikya's Basque Cheesecake was beyond delicious and determined then that I would like to make it one day. A year or so went by and I never got around to it. My capacity for procrastination is infinite. The next time I thought about it was when we recently had dinner at the Barcelona Restaurant, on the ground floor of our Avant apartment building in Reston Town Center.
The recipe is set out under each photo below.
Gently cream 2.25lbs of cream cheese with 1.75 cups of sugar
Add one quarter of a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal Salt and blend
It looked unbelievably complex and had 10 very long but distinct stages. It was the "War and Peace" of the culinary world. I thanked her profusely but knew that I would not have the patience or skill to go through 10 stages; and the list of ingredients was as long as a packing list for an Arctic expedition.
Add 5 eggs, one at a time, and blend well before adding the next one
Out of the blue a few days ago, a Basque Cheesecake recipe popped up on my computer screen while I was reading the New York Times. Aha, I thought, this is a little nudge from the Universe. I looked at the recipe and it only had five ingredients, rather simple instructions and this introductory blurb:
"Generously burnished and with velvety custardy interior, this rustic, crustless cheesecake from the Basque region of northern Spain is the platonic ideal of low effort, high reward dessert."
My procrastination evaporated and I wrote down the ingredients on a piece of paper and headed out to the supermarket. I was inspired. Burnt Basque Cheesecake. Yesss! What could possibly go wrong?
Carefully and slowly pour in two cups of heavy cream while blending
As it turns out, nothing goes wrong if you just follow the recipe.
Sift in the flour then gently mix on low
When I completed the last stage, those big lumps of cream cheese had become a rich and gooey liquid which smelt quite enticing. I was wondering whether I should put in a hint of Lemon essence or something but then decided against it. Don't mess with the recipe first time around.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until browned and nearly burnt
I am happy to report that the recipe was just fine and that, as far as I could tell, it looked good at this stage. So, into the 400F oven it went for 45 minutes when the top was just browning. I gave it an extra five minutes and it was dark brown but not burnt. Another five minutes and it was nicely burnt. Finish.
Now I have to wait for it to cool down. The center will collapse as it cools so I took the photo (above) while it was still all puffy, aerated and still a bit jiggly, just as the recipe foretold.
And it did indeed collapse about ten minutes later when it cooled down a bit. It will take at least another two hours to really cool and then it has to go in the fridge overnight. Tasting will take place tomorrow. Don't know if I can wait that long!
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Well, tomorrow is here--I mean it is today! And this is what the finished article looks like. Chef Regee tells me that this is what it should look like and to stop fretting. So, the only other thing that might be relevant? How does it taste?
Once again, I rely upon the in-house baking expert. These are her words:
"It is a little bit denser than I thought it would be but it tastes wonderful."
I will take that as a positive critique. In my heart of hearts I think it might be a big fluke but the real test will come when I attempt it for a second time.
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Well, that happened much sooner than I expected. Regee asked me to make it again for a friend's 70th surprise birthday party. More pressure. What if it all went wrong?
Long story short, it turned out OK. Regee added some strawberries on top et voila!
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