German Cherry Cheesecake
This German cherry cheesecake with the right amount of sweetness is easy to follow and looks and tastes amazing. Made up of a nutty, chocolatey, and moist crust, filled with cheesecake filling that’s flavored with vanilla and finished off with canned sour cherries (preserved in water) thickened with cornstarch (corn flour). Made it yesterday for my mum in law’s birthday and it was as always, a huge hit.
Servings: 12 Servings
Equipment
- 26 cm(10 inch) spring-form (or cake tin with removable base)
Ingredients
For the cocoa - hazelnut crust
- 150 g (1 ¼ cups/ 5.3 oz) plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 1 medium egg
- 125 g (about ½ cup/ 4.4 oz) butter soft
- 75 g (¼ cup + 2 tablespoons/ 2.6 oz) sugar
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder unsweetened
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 100 g (1 cup/ 3.5 oz) ground nuts hazelnuts or almonds, or mixture of the two
- 70 g (2.5 lbs.) milk chocolate
For the fillling
- 100 ml (about 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon/ 3.4 fl.oz) milk room temperature
- 2 medium eggs room temperature
- 175 g (6.2 oz) cream cheese room temperature
- 40 g (⅓ cup/ 1.4 oz) cornstarch (corn flour)
- 125 g (4.4 oz/ ½ cup + 2 tablespoons) sugar
- 1 vanilla bean
- 300 g (0.66 lbs) sour cream room temperature
- 500 g (1.1 lbs) quark room temperature
- 125 g (about ½ cup/ 4.4 oz) butter soft
For the topping
- 700 g (1.5 lbs.) canned sour cherries preserved in water undrained
- 30 g (1.1 oz/ ¼ cup) cornstarch (corn flour)
- 2 tablepoons sugar
Instructions
- Start off by lining a 26 – cm (10.2 inches) springform cake tin with a parchment paper at the bottom and grease the sides with butter and dust with cocoa powder. Next cut chocolate into chunks. In a bowl combine sugar, butter, flour, hazelnuts, cacao powder, baking powder and an egg. Using your hands combine all the ingredients together until you have a firm dough. Add chocolate chunks and combine well. Crumble the dough into the prepared springform (or cake tin with removable base). Using your hands dusted with flour, press the cake base until the bottom of the cake tin is covered. Make the dough high on the sides as well and set aside. Next preheat the oven to 180 ° C (356°F), with both top and bottom heat.
- Using the tip of the knife split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the vanilla seeds. Mix the scraped-out seeds with sugar very well. Next add butter, vanilla sugar (that ypu've just mader), and eggs to an empty bowl and beat until creamy. Add cornstarch, quark, milk, cream cheese and sour cream and whisk to a smooth cream. Pour the cheesecake filling into the cake base and bake for 60 minutes.
- About 5 minutes before the 60 minutes baking time is over, mix a little bit of cherry water with cornstarch. Add the remaining cherries including cherry water and sugar to a pot, mix well and bring to a boil. Then add cornstarch – cherry mixture to the pot and keep stirring constantly until it starts to bubble and has thickened. Immediately after making the cherry pudding spread it on the cheesecake and let cool completely, preferably overnight. Enjoy!