Burnt top Cheesecake

Burnt top cheesecake

This is a lazy person's baked cheesecake, no folding or separating eggs. No adding topping. The ingredients get added in series and the most complicated thing is tidily getting the mixture from the bowl to the cake tin. 

Why cheesecake? Apart from pure greed, I've had some double cream in the fridge sitting and turning sour. For some reason I bought a big pot when I only needed a small one... Turning to browsing some cookery books I found this recipe for a simpler cheesecake that uses sour cream. The original recipe says use a 20cm/8" loose bottomed cake tin, but once the mixture was ready to decant I realised it would make a massive cake, so used two smaller tins, 15cm/6" and 18cm/7". Both a good size, and more manageable than one vast cheesecake both for cooking and eating. 

it looks creamy and it tastes creamy

Recipe: Burnt Top Cheesecake

The caramel coloured crust on this cheesecake gives it a slight burnt caramel flavour, matched by the creamy interior to make a delicious mouthful.

Prep

You don't need to butter the tin if you're lining it with baking parchment. I used a combination of a round cake liner and parchment. The height of the parchment stops the top of the cake from browning too much (burning), as the cooking temperature is quite high.

ready for the oven

Ingredients

800g soft cheese

225g caster sugar

2tbsp plain flour

200g sour cream

4 eggs

2tsp vanilla

Half quantities:

400g soft cheese

112g caster sugar

1 tbsp plain flour

100g sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Method

You decide what size tin you want to use, the mixture is enough for two 18cm/7" cakes. Line lose bottomed or springform tins well with baking parchment, so that the parchment sits well above the edge of the cake tin.

Set the oven to 220C fan/240C/gas 9, don't crowd the oven.

in a large bowl mix the soft cheese and sugar until smooth and even with an electric mixer

add the sifted flour, soured cream, eggs, vanilla and salt. Mix together until you have a smooth batter.

cooling after cooking for 30m

Pour or ladle into your lined tin/s, and bang the mixture in the tin sharply on the counter to get rid of any bubbles.

Put the tin/s into the hot oven and cook for 20-30 minutes - the top with darken, but the mixture will still have a wobble.