The Cheesecake that Converted me
Let me start off by saying, I’ve never been a “cheesecake person”. I’ve always found it too heavy and honestly quite bland in texture and flavor. That being said, if someone put one in front of me, I’d take a few bites - but it’s never the dessert I would order off the menu. I recently received a request from a client to make a cheesecake for her father’s 70th birthday, so it was time to make a cheesecake that even I could be excited about. I knew it needed to be passionfruit, 1. because a friend had recently gifted me some fresh passionfruit that were ready to be used, and 2. because the bright tartness of passionfruit would cut through the heaviness of all that cream cheese. I also had an abundance of goat cheese leftover from another event, so I knew I wanted to incorporate that as well.
After a brief peruse of reddit I found Claire Saffitz’s goat cheese cheesecake recipe and decided to adapt my recipe from hers. About the crust… don’t make the same mistake I did and be sure to use a double crust recipe! Nothing is worse than having a beautifully tart cheesecake filling and not enough buttery graham cracker crust to support her suppleness. The recipe I’ve included below should be sufficient for even your most luscious cheesecakes!
Let me just say that I was a little nervous about the baking process of this cheesecake (water-bath etc) but the end result came out SO GOOD. I had more than one person tell me it was the best cheesecake they’d ever had, so not to brag, but…yeah.
I opted to top my cheesecake with a simple passionfruit coulis which is a just a fancy French way of saying syrup. It’s a simple mixture of fruit puree and sugar, cooked to thicken it.
DOUBLE CRUST RECIPE
400 g graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsp or 74 g sugar
1 stick or 120 g butter melted
PASSIONFRUIT CHEESECAKE
225 g goat cheese at room temp
675 g cream cheese at room temp
267 g sugar
4 eggs room temp
300 g heavy cream / sour cream combo or all heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
75 g passionfruit puree
PASSIONFRUIT COULIS TOPPING
100 g passionfruit puree
100 g fresh passionfruit with seeds
150 g sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
Pulse graham crackers in a food processor until they reach the texture of sand. Alternatively you can do what I did and put them in a plastic bag and smash them with a rolling pin. More than one way to skin a cat here.
Add crumbs to a bowl with the sugar and melted butter and mix with your hand until it starts to stick together. It will be crumbly.
Pack the crust into a buttered 9” springform pan, starting at the bottom and working your way up the sides. Use a cup or measuring cup to help pack down the sides of the crust.
Bake the crust at 350 for 10 mins.
Beat your softened cream cheese, goat cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium/high with the paddle attachment for 4 minutes, until light and smooth.
Slowly add the eggs, one at a time with the paddle on low speed.
Slowly stream in the heavy cream/sour cream mix.
Lastly add the vanilla and passionfruit puree and mix until silky smooth.
Pour the cake batter into the crusted 9” springform pan and place inside of a large pot or roasting pan in the oven, preheated to 325.
Pour hot water into the pan to create a water bath or bain-marie if you want to sound French.
Bake the cheesecake in the water bath at 325 for 60-70 minutes, until the center still jiggles slightly but isn’t runny. The center of the cake should have a jell-o like jiggle to it.
After it’s done baking turn off the oven, crack the door and let the cheesecake luxuriate in it’s water bath for another hour before removing from the oven completely.
Let the cake chill in the fridge overnight.
Cook the passionfruit puree and sugar in a pot letting it boil and thicken to make the coulis. Add more or less sugar to your desired sweetness.
Top the cake with the passionfruit coulis, slice, serve, and impress all of your friends and family.
