Having declared my passion for New York Cheesecake (The Big Cheese of Cheesecakes), my roving eye has since alighted on another contender for the title, which, if not superior, definitely gives the New York version a run for its money.

Last Christmas I discovered the Basque Cheesecake (often called Burnt Basque Cheesecake) which, while new to me, has been around for centuries. It gets its name from its place of origin, the Basque region of Spain, where it’s said to have been created by local shepherds. Its Spanish name is “tarta de queso” or “gazda tarto”. Attention was first drawn to it, so the story goes, by its appearance on the menu at La Viña, a small family run pintxo bar in the old town of San Sebastián.

An article called “The True Story Behind the Burnt Basque Cheesecake” published on the Conde Nast Traveller website, attributes its introduction to Santi Rivera, one of the sons of the proprietors of La Viña. His experiments in the kitchen in 1988 led to today’s version of the cheesecake. 

In the interview published on the Conde Nast Traveller website, Santi recalls that one of their customers, a chef from Paris’s Ritz-Carlton, tried the dish and told him refrigeration detracted from the characteristic custardy texture, so he began displaying it next to the coffee machine, where it quickly attracted the attention of customers. From then on, it began to sell so quickly they had to start making it in bulk. 

Its fame spread further after Marti Buckley included it in her cookbook “Basque Country” published in 2018. 

Then, to add grist to the mill, the New York Times declared it “flavor of the year for 2021“.

Naturally, it was immediately snapped up by the hungry maw of social media and as the saying goes, “went viral”. That I only just found out about it shows what a Luddite I am when it comes to social media.

This cheesecake is characterised by a burnt, almost charred looking exterior (as if it’s been left too long in the oven) and no crumb crust. Compared to New York, Basque has a lighter, more soufflé like texture and it’s baked at a high temperature, which accounts for the bronzed top and the crinkly brown crusted sides. Overall, it’s a quite rustic looking creation, often served simply on the paper it’s cooked in.

Composed of only cream cheese, sugar, eggs and flour, the batter is thick and dense and when cooked has a creamy, custard-like texture. The rather alarming burnt appearance is created by the caramelisation of the ingredients, resulting in a combination of tangy, creamy, caramel and browned butter flavours. Because of the contrast of caramelised top and creamy custard interior, in appearance it’s rather like a Crème Brûlée.

As it cooks it rises like a soufflé which then sinks a bit in the centre after it’s removed from the oven. Like its New York cousin, it’s traditionally served plain, although, because of the natural depression in the surface, it’s ideal for topping with fruit, cream and the like.

In terms of secrets to success, there are several:

• The oven needs to be well pre-heated to about 220C
• Use a smaller size springform cake pan than you think you might need to give the cheesecake greater height while keeping it from drying out
• Screw the baking paper up before pushing down into the pan then crease it in folds around the rim to get the hallmark crinkly sided look
• Make sure your eggs, cream cheese and cream are at room temperature before mixing

(In regard to lining the pan, a word of warning from one who, if there’s a mistake to be made, will make it. If your baking paper extends a fair way above the pan, be careful when taking it out of the oven that it doesn’t catch alight on the hot surface of the oven, as one of mine did. It gave a whole new meaning to “Burnt Basque Cheesecake”. It is, of course, only the cheesecake we want burnt, not the whole kitchen.)

As this isn’t a cooking website, I haven’t provided a recipe, but they’re very easy to find. A good example is on the amazing foodie website Recipetineats which comes complete with instructional video.

My “discovery” of Basque Cheesecake, albeit tardy, seemed serendipitous at the time as I was looking for a special dessert to take to a Christmas lunch. The Christmas edition of Coles Magazine contained a recipe for “Basque Cheesecake with Caramelised Banana and Hazelnut Praline”, accompanied by a photo of a magnificently extravagant looking creation.

Going way beyond the concept of Basque Cheesecake as the kind of simple, rustic dish you might find in an unpretentious Spanish bar, this version flung itself into sybaritic realms, not only gilding the lily with banana, caramel and hazelnut praline, but lashings of brandy flavoured cream as well. A show-stopper in every sense of the word. And for once my creation ended up looking not dissimilar to the photo in the magazine. This is such a rare occurrence that whenever I attempt a new dish, I’ve really got no idea how it will end up.

While this recipe succeeded in making me an instant convert to Basque Cheesecake, caramelised banana, brandy cream and hazelnut praline on top of all that cream, sugar and so on, seemed an embarrassment of carbs so the next time I made it, I toned it down a fraction, substituting caramelised apricots for the bananas.

Profligacy of course is excusable at Christmas but should be reined in at other times, and I’ve found this dish served quite unadorned is still exceptional. In terms of taste, creaminess and ease of preparation, I think it’s nudged New York Cheesecake out of the top spot.