German cheese cake. Kasekuchen

How to make a German cheesecake or Käsekuchen . One of the  sweet recipes that I am passionate about in German pastry is this cheesecake.

Käsekuchen is a rare name for us but quite familiar in German cuisine. A cake with cheese and meringue, very similar to the famous American cheesecake , made from cottage cheese or double cream cheese.

It is usually accompanied with a compote of berries, strawberries, apples, blackberries, blackberries, blueberries, blueberries, lemon marmalade, peach or orange. This tart has a creaminess and an incomparable flavor.

In each German house they usually prepare it in their own way, there is no exact science. It is usually prepared with cream cheese, cottage cheese, they also use quark and schmand , as a kind of thick cream or crème fraîche.

As a star ingredient, a kind of preparation for making custard or pudding called Vanillepuddingpulver that I have replaced here with Flanin. The base that we have prepared is the classic shortcrust pastry but you can make it easier with some crushed cookies.

This recipe cheesecake tasted it for the first time in Ourense, from the hand of my friend Sonia, that is what has given me the recipe that I now share with you all. As she says, it is a recipe that has passed from her mother and aunt to her kitchen.

The recipe is very easy and has a very special vanilla flavor that we get with the flanin.

“ I remember that when I lived in Germany on Saturday afternoons we always used to meet my parents, my uncles and some friends for coffee or chocolate and this cake was never missing. Over the years we have maintained the tradition and it is present in each and every one of our family celebrations. Enjoy it! I assure you that you will like it ”

Preparation of the Käsekuchen. Cheesecake base

1. We are going to prepare a very simple shortcrust pastry. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat to avoid burning.
2. In a bowl mix the egg, with the tablespoon of sugar and butter. Stir until you get a homogeneous mixture.
3. We gradually incorporate the flour, working the resulting mass well. We will know that it is ready when the fingers do not stick to the dough.
4. Once ready, we spread it on the base and sides of a removable round pastry mold. Of those in which once the cake is prepared we can remove the part from the sides and leave the base. We reserve.

Preparation of the Käsekuchen. Cheesecake filling

1. We separate the whites from the egg yolks and reserve them in a glass bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, add the egg yolks, the envelope of flanin diluted in the glass of milk, the zest of the lemon, the sugar and the cottage cheese.
3. Mix well with a mixer until all the ingredients are completely linked. We reserve.
4. We beat the egg whites until stiff like meringue. In case you do not know how to make meringue, the trick to make it come out without problems is to mix the egg whites at room temperature (not too cold) with a pinch of salt and then add the sugar.
5. We beat a little more until they rise and are firm, in the bowl there should not be a single residue of fat or the whites will not rise.
6. Then handle the meringue with a spatula. We will know that they are ready when turning the bowl in which we are mounting them they remain stuck to the glass.
7. Once the egg whites are assembled, we join them with the mixture that we had reserved, being very careful not to lower them.
8. Finally, we incorporate this mixture into the mold in which we had previously stretched the base mass.

Baking and final presentation of the cheesecake

1. We preheat the oven 10 minutes before baking the cheesecake at 180ºC for 10 minutes.
2. We put the cake in the oven (heat option up and down, in the middle tray of it) at 180º C for about 2 hours.
3. As I mentioned in some other recipe, it all depends on the oven. Always look with a fork and when it is dry, remove. Maybe your oven is more powerful and in an hour and a half you will have it ready.
4. Let cool for a few hours. We unmold.
5. We finish by sprinkling with icing sugar or covering the cake with yogurt of some flavor. Honey or some jam or fruit jam that we like is also very good, a good applesauce is luxurious. A cheesecake that will be richer if eaten overnight and just taken out of the fridge.

You can see all the step by step photos of this German cheesecake   in this album.