apple cheesecake

apple cheesecake

• 26 Jun 2017

Hi Every-one,

This simple little apple cheesecake probably garners more compliments than anything I've ever made and as I've been making it for 30 years now, I think I've ironed out any wrinkles in the recipe. It has appeared on the blog before, albeit many years ago. When I checked the archives during the weekend, I discovered I hadn't posted the recipe.  




The original recipe made a 9 inch cake but I made an 8 inch/20 cm cheese cake for a work morning tea so I had to adapt the quantities to fit the tin. I made the base and filling the night before I baked the cheesecake so all I had to do was pre-heat the oven and prepare the apple topping. You can make the cheesecake using regular beaters but I've always used a food processor to make both the base and the filling. The apples you'll need to slice by hand or I guess you could use a mandolin.



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Apple Cheesecake (makes an 8 inch cake) 

Base 

75 grams unsalted butter 

2 tbs caster sugar 

⅔ cup Plain Flour 

½ teaspoon vanilla essence 

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and creamy. Mix in the flour and combine until the mixture forms a soft dough. If you prefer, place all the ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and combine until a soft dough forms around the blade. Press the mixture into the base of a greased 20 cm spring-form tin, bringing it slightly up the sides. 

Filling 

1 250 gram packet of cream cheese, softened 

1 egg 

¼ cup caster sugar 

½ teaspoon vanilla essence 

1 tablespoon yoghurt 

In a food processor, combine all the ingredients and whiz until smooth. Pour over the base. 

Topping 

1 peeled, cored and thinly sliced apple

1 tablespoons caster sugar 

¼ teaspoon cinnamon 

1-2 tbs flaked almonds 

Preheat the oven to 220° C. Layer the sliced apples over the filling.  Combine the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over the filling. Finally top with the almonds. Bake for 10 minutes then lower the temperature to 190° C and bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until the filling is just set and the apples are lightly browned. Allow to cool in the turned off oven for 10-15 minutes, before removing from the oven. When cold, remove from the tin before cutting into slices to serve.

It's such a simple recipe using only a few ingredients but it does make a very delicious dessert. What you'll get are equal quantities of buttery vanilla scented shortbread, cheesecake filling with a topping of cinnamon flavoured apples and a little bit of crunch from the toasted flaked almonds. Delicious.

I'm not sure if there'll be a food post next Monday because this time next week I'll be in Cape Town. I'll post when I can but I think I'll be in an internet free zone most of the time I'll be in Namibia, so you'll see me when you see me.

Bye for now,

Jillian