I can’t believe that the first time I ever made and/or tried a Basque cheesecake was last year. How did I not know about it before?! I am just glad that I made the decision to try one once I started seeing more of them on the internet. Since then I have made different flavoured ones a couple of times and I can honestly say that Basque cheesecakes are simply the best cheesecakes ever. Their main characteristics: their consistency is super creamy, the top looks very browned – sometimes almost burnt and they have no biscuit base at the bottom.
Ingredients:
Cheesecake:
- 850g Philadelphia cheese – room temp
- 240g caster sugar
- 180g pistachio paste (100%)*
see notes at the bottom - 5 large eggs
- 340g double cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Decor:
- 45g whipping cream
- 100g white chocolate
- 10g pistachio paste
- Chopped pistachios
Instructions:
- Take out the Philadelphia cheese from the fridge way before you start making the cheesecake to let it get to a room temperature.
- A few minutes before you start preparing the cheesecake, preheat your oven to 200C – no fan.
- Place and press in two pieces of baking paper into a 22cm springform pan – making sure that one of them is turned at a slight angle, so that the baking paper sticks out above the rim around the whole of the springform. This is needed because the cheesecake will rise whilst baking.
- Place the Philadelphia cheese, sugar & pistachio paste in a mixing bowl and using the paddle attachment, beat together for about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another minute or so until smooth.
- Add the eggs, cream, vanilla extract and mix on a low speed just until combined – try not to over-beat the mixture.
- Pour the cheesecake mixture into the prepared tin through a sieve.
- Bake for around 43minutes. It will jiggle a lot – this is good & certainly the consistency that you want it to be. The top should be pretty browned too. But since every oven is different, if it hasn’t browned, don’t worry. You can turn on the top grill function in your oven for the last 2 minutes or so of the baking time. But please make sure to keep an eye on the cheesecake if/when you do that.
- Carefully take it out of the oven and let it cool before placing it in the fridge to set OVERNIGHT. Do not open the springform until the cheesecake had the time to set in the fridge. 🙂
Baking it for 43minutes will ensure that the cheesecake is soft and has a creamy consistency in the middle as you can see in the main photo. You can add a few more minutes, if you’d prefer for it to be slightly firmer, but I am not sure I’d recommend doing that. 😉 Everyone who has tasted this pistachio Basque cheesecake kept mentioning the fab consistency it has.
The day of serving
- Place the whipping cream, white chocolate and pistachio paste in a small saucepan over a low heat until everything is combined and smooth.
- Spread it on top of the cheesecake and decorate with chopped pistachios. Place in the fridge to let it set a little.
* Pistachio paste notes:
I like to use salted pistachios and I use them to make my own pistachio paste, but you may prefer to use unsalted ones. It’s so easy to make your own: place the pistachios in a pan, roast them for a few minutes and then transfer them to a food processor, add a tablespoon of neutral oil and blend until it turns into a smooth consistency. Make sure to scrape the sides every now and then and be patient. ????
In case you can’t buy/make your own pistachio paste, you can swap it for pistachio cream instead, but you might need to remove the white chocolate out of the recipe as pistachio cream is a lot sweeter than the 100% pistachio paste (no sugar at all in those). You want to make sure to use a good quality pistachio cream. The ones with sugar as the first ingredient don’t tend to be the best ones to use. You should look for the ones where they have at least 45% pistachios and they’re listed as the main ingredient! But I’d highly recommend using the 100% paste if you can.
Happy baking! 🙂
