Benjamina Ebuehi has shared her recipe for a burnt Basque cheesecake topped with lightly spiced toffee apple slices, giving the classic dessert an autumn twist.
Ebuehi describes the Basque cheesecake as her go-to, noting that it works so well it does not need a biscuit base. She explains that the burnt top provides enough bitterness to balance the sweetness, while the inside stays extremely creamy.
Her key tip is to remove the cheesecake from the oven while it is still very wobbly to achieve the best set, warning that an overbaked Basque is no fun at all.
The recipe takes five minutes to prepare and one hour 10 minutes to cook, with an overnight chill, and serves 12.
Ingredients for the cheesecake are 750g cream cheese, 220g caster sugar, one and a half teaspoons of vanilla bean paste, four large eggs plus one egg yolk, 300ml double cream, one teaspoon of fine sea salt and 20g plain flour.
For the toffee apples, the recipe calls for three eating apples, 60g butter, 80g dark brown sugar, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 120ml double cream.
To begin, heat the oven to 240C (220C fan)/465F/gas 9. Two large sheets of baking paper should be scrunched up and then smoothed out into the corners of a deep 20cm cake tin.
The cream cheese, sugar and vanilla should be beaten briefly in a large bowl or stand mixer until smooth. The eggs are added one at a time, followed by the extra yolk, taking care not to beat at high speed to avoid incorporating too much air. The cream and salt are then stirred in.
About an eighth of the batter should be scooped into a smaller bowl, with the flour sifted on top. This is mixed well to ensure there are no lumps, scraped back into the main mixture and stirred thoroughly to combine.
The batter is poured into the prepared tin and baked for 35-40 minutes, until the top is very well browned and the cheesecake still has a huge wobble. If the top is not dark enough, it can be placed under a hot grill for a couple of minutes. The cheesecake should be left to cool to room temperature, then chilled in the fridge, ideally overnight, before being removed from its tin.
For the toffee apples, the apples are peeled and cored, then sliced thickly into eighths. The butter is heated in a wide pan, the apples tossed in and turned to coat, and cooked for three to four minutes until they start to soften around the edges. The sugar and cinnamon are added and stirred to combine, and once the sugar has melted the cream is poured in. The sauce is cooked briefly until smooth, simmered for a minute, then taken off the heat with a pinch of salt stirred in.
Once the apples have cooled, they are spooned over the cheesecake with some of the caramel sauce. Slices can be served with extra sauce if desired.
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