the German cheesecake – better than the american version?

In Germany, whenever you proudly announce that you made a Käsekuchen, you are usually met with the question: ” A Käsekuchen or a cheesecake?”. When you confirm it actually is a German cheesecake, you will highly unlikely get a disappointed reaction. In Germany, the Käsekuchen overwhelmingly beats the cheesecake in popularity.
But why? What’s the difference. Surely, the crust is a bit different: a shortcrust for the German, a biscuit crust for the American version, but this does not cut quite enough. The secret is in the heart of the Käsekuchen: the rich, creamy and unique quark is the secret. Between cottage cheese and yogurt, the quark gives your Käsekuchen a fluffy but rich texture. Once you’ve tried it, there’s no going back!

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 240 g flour
• 80 g butter
• 100 g sugar
• one egg
• one pack of vanilla sugar (8g)
• half a pack of baking powder (8g)

For the filling

• 1 kg Quark (you can use fatty yogurt instead)
• 250 g sugar
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar
• 1 pack of vanilla pudding mix
• 5 eggs

The recipe

The crust

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Melt the butter and add the rest of the ingredients. The dough should not be too sticky.

Spread the crust in a springform tin (26 cm in diameter). A good way to do it is to form small balls of dough and push them down in the tin. The dough should be thin, otherwise you won’t get enough for the sides!

The filling

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Separate the egg-whites and the egg-yolks, put them into separate bowls. Add the sugars to the yolks and mix well.

Add the pudding powder and the the quark, mix until smooth.

Add a bit of salt to the egg-whites and beat them until firm. You can finally add them carefully to the rest of the filling. The best is to fold them in with a spatula.

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Pour the filling in the crust. In order to get rid of air bubbles, tap the tin a few times on a hard surface. The surface of the cake will get smooth at the same time.

Bake your cake at 180°C for 50 minutes. Open the oven door after that and bake it for another 15 minutes. After that turn the oven off and let te cake cool off in the oven before you take it out.

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Personally, I feel the cake is even better if it has spent a night in the fridge! That is, if you can wait that long 😉

Fluffy, nutty and never dry!

This carrot cake is super easy, there is no way you can fail it! Even after three or four days it stays nice and moist. And last but not least: it’s animal friendly: it’s 100% plant-based. You can make it even better with a frosting of your choice.

Ingredients

• 2 big handful of nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, anything you like)
• 200 g carrots
• half a lemon
• 80 ml neutral oil
• 200 g whole grain flour (wheat or spelt)
• half a pack of baking powder (8g)
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar (8g)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger powder
• salt

recipe

Roughly chop the nuts into small bits and roast them in a pan until they are golden brown. Let them cool in a bowl.

Finely grate the carrots and mix them with the juice and zest of the lemon. Add the oil and the sugars and mix well.

Add the rest of the ingredients (don’t forget the nuts!).

If the batter is too dry, you can add a bit of water. It has to be thick and sticky but shouldn’t have any dry spots.

Put the batter in a floured cake-tin and bake the cake for 45-60 minutes at 180°C.

Frosting (optional)

To make your cake even better, you can add some frosting. Fro a cream cheese frosting you will need:

• 150 g cream cheese
• a bit of juice and zest of a lemon or lime
• 50 g of powdered sugar

Just mix everything well!
If you want to keep the cake for several days, I suggest you keep the frosting in a separate bowl in the fridge. You can put the frosting only on the part you’ll eat immediately: it will keep longer.

Enjoy 🙂