Super light Taiwanese orange cheesecake

Taiwan’s cheesecakes are sublime. They’re light and fresh, plus they’re not very sweet, but the taste is off the charts.

These are nothing like New York cheesecakes, which are dense and creamy and very cheesy. Rather Taiwanese cheesecakes are almost like chilled soufflés.  

When I worked in Taipei, my girlfriends in the office would often take me along to a bakery whenever they needed an afternoon pick-me-up, and there these exquisite cheesecakes would beckon. 

Part of the allure would be the mirrorlike glaze that contained shimmering bits of colorful fruit. They looked so decadent, and yet turned out to be (almost) diet food because of their cloudlike texture.

These cheesecakes often are baked without a graham cracker crust, which lessens the sweetness by many decibels. This also means that all of the focus in this dessert is aimed at the cheesecake and whatever topping is slid on top.

Pretty as a picture

Finally, these are even more sensible because they’re make in very small sizes – only 6 inches or 15 centimeters in diameter – which makes a very good case in my mind for commandeering the whole thing for myself. 

I mean, these are relatively lo cal, right?

Taiwanese style orange cheesecake

Táiwān zhīshì júxiāng dàngāo 台灣芝士橘香蛋糕

Taiwan pastry

Makes one (6-inch | 15 cm) cake and serves around 6

Spray oil

Meringue:

2 large egg whites, room temperature

1 teaspoon orange juice

3 tablespoons sugar, divided in half

Rest of the filling:

About 4 ounces | 110 g cream cheese, room temperature

1½ tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1½ tablespoons sugar

6 tablespoons | 85 ml whole milk, room temperature

2 large egg yolks, room temperature

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Cracked surface is A-OK

3 tablespoons cake flour

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

Finely grated peel of 1 orange

Boiling water, as needed

Topping:

1 envelope gelatin

¼ cup | 60 ml cool water

1 (11 ounce | 312 g) can mandarin orange segments in light syrup

Orange juice, as needed

1. Start this a day before you plan to serve it. Line a 6-inch | 15 cm springform pan with aluminum foil, spray lightly with oil, and then line it with yet another layer of parchment paper. Set a rack in the center of your oven and heat the oven to 350°F | 180°C.

2. Place the egg whites, orange juice, and half of the sugar in a very clean mixing bow. Whip on high with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Sprinkle in the rest of the sugar and beat until the whites are a stiff meringue, but not dry. Scrape this into a clean work bowl. 

Arrange the orange segments

3. Place the cream cheese in the mixing bowl and beat with the paddle attachment until light. Beat in the butter and then the sugar. Slowly beat in the milk, egg yolks, cornstarch, flour, salt, and orange peel. 

4. Use a balloon whisk to fold a quarter of the meringue into the batter, and then gently fold in the rest. 

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Set this into a deep baking pan and add enough boiling water so that it comes up at least 1 inch | 2 cm around the cake pan. Bake the cheesecake in the water bath for 15 minutes, at which time the surface should start to barely turn brown. Reduce the heat to 250°F | 120°C and continue to bake for around 35 to 40 minutes. The edges will pull away from the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean when it is ready. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and set it on a rack to cool for about 10 minutes.

6. Release the cake from the rim. Pull the parchment paper gently away from the cheesecake and then let the cake cool down to room temperature. 

Jeweled topping

7. Next, make the jelly top: Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and give it about 10 minutes to swell up and bloom. Drain syrup from the orange segments into a measuring cup and add enough orange juice (from that same one you used for zest) to get ¾ cup | 190 ml. Microwave this juice for a minute or two so that it almost boils, and then stir the gelatin into this hot liquid until the gelatin dissolves.

8. The cake will shrink as it cools, so the easiest way to mold a jelly top is to line the cake pan you just used with plastic wrap and use this as your jelly mold. You will then cut away any extra jelly later on. So, arrange the mandarin orange slices in the bottom of the pan in an attractive pattern. Pour about ¼ cup | 60 ml of the gelatin mixture over the orange segments and chill. When this has firmed up, pour in about ½ cup | 125 ml over the jelly and chill again.

9. When the jelly is very firm, remove it from the plastic and flip it over onto the plastic wrap and return it to the pan so that the oranges are on the top – this will give you a shiny surface on the finished cake. Pour in the rest of the gelatin mixture and then set the cheesecake on top. Cover and chill overnight.

10. Unmold the cheesecake onto a serving plate and trim off any excess from the jelly layer. Use a sharp knife to cut it into wedges, and wipe the knife with a hot, moist towel between slices to get sharp edges to each wedge.

Elephant ear cookies

You probably eaten (and loved) palmiers, those delightful swirls of puff pastry rolled up with nothing more than cinnamon and sugar in order to form simple, crunchy cookies. 

And I agree, those are indeed delicious, as well as elegant.

But how about something approximately a zillion times better? For that you need to try the Chinese version. 

And by the way, these are nothing close to elegant.

Instead of the classic palmier shape that has both sides curled toward the center (palmier is French for palm tree, but don’t ask me why these look like palm trees or fronds… I’d call these bunny heads for sure), the Chinese version is just rolled up in one direction with the regular filling. 

Yup, lamination

And so, if you are a fan of The Great British Baking Show, you might even recognize that the correct ancestors of these elephant ears very likely were French arlettes. That is why, in the immortal words of Paul Hollywood, you will find lamination galore. (For the Netflix deprived, lamination means lots of distinct layers.)

However, things suddenly turn decidedly decadent at this point. 

Not yet content with the sugar and spice level at this point, you will now sprinkle more cinnamon sugar on your work surface, dredge each slice in this topping, and then roll in out until it is the size of a large man’s hand. It won’t be as thick as a large man’s hand at this point, but have patience, for it has yet to be baked.

For when these cookies are slid into a hot oven, they will puff up enticingly. Even better, that extra sugar will caramelize around the edge and on the bottom, making this incredibly crispy and satisfyingly crunchy. 

Trails in the cinnamon sugar filling

In fact, they become so flaky that these are best eaten standing up in an empty bathtub. I’m not kidding.

You'll occasionally find these in Taiwanese-style (or even Hong Kong-style) bakeries under a variety of names, like krispies in English or buffalo ears (níuĕr 牛耳) in Chinese, so there doesn't seem to be any agreement anywhere, except that these are quite possibly the best little secret a bakery can have.

Elephant ear cookies

Dàxiàng ĕrduó sū 大象耳朵酥

Taiwan

Press the filling into the dough

Makes 6 enormous cookies

Cookies:

1 package (2 sheets, 17.3 ounces | 490 g) best quality frozen puff pastry

¼ cup | 50 g granulated (caster) sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (see Tips)

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

Spray oil

Topping:

½ cup | 100 g granulated (caster) sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Smoosh down the roll into a coil

1. Thaw the puff pastry as directed on the package, but keep it cold. Combine the sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl, and crush any lumps you happen across.

2. Set one rack in the center of your oven and heat it to 400°F (200°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and spray lightly with oil.

3. Unroll one sheet of puff pastry on a big piece of parchment paper and open it up. Keep the second sheet in the refrigerator, as puff pastry needs to remain cold until it’s shaped and baked. It’s ok if the sheet breaks along the fold lines, as you’ll be dealing with that soon enough. Gently roll out the dough without adding any extra flour until it is an even rectangle and is fairly smooth; the size is unimportant. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture evenly over the surface, and then roll the puff pastry up from one of the long sides. If your kitchen is hot, transfer the roll to the refrigerator to chill and keep the sugar from melting while you repeat this step with the rest of the cookie ingredients, and then chill that second roll, too.

Sprinkle with the topping

4. Mix the topping ingredients together in a work bowl. You’ll need about a heaping tablespoon of the topping per cookie. Working on one chilled roll at a time, slice each crosswise into 3 even pieces. Sprinkle a teaspoon or two of the topping on the parchment paper, and then set one rolled piece on its end. Press it down gently to form a flattened coil.

5. Roll out the coil to make an oval disc about 8 x 4 inches (20 x 10 cm), sprinkling the rest of the topping on it, flipping it over a couple of times as you work, and then transfer it and any sugar underneath it to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with one more, keeping around 1 inch | 2 cm between the cookies, as they won’t spread much, but this will make them easier to remove later on. Sprinkle a teaspoon or so of the topping evenly over each cookie, and then slide in the oven. Work on the second sheet while the first sheet is in the oven, and keep this rhythm going so that you have one tray in the oven while the next tray of cookies is being formed. 

Roll out the coil into a cookie

6. Check the cookies at around 7 minutes and every minute after that. (My oven took about 10 minutes per sheet.) They are done when the edges are gently caramelized and the cookies are puffy and golden. Slide the parchment paper with the cookies off onto a cool, heatproof surface, and then once they are relatively easy to handle, peel them off of the paper to cool thoroughly on a cake rack. Repeat the rolling and baking until all of the cookies are done. I think you can store in an airtight container at room temperature, but to be honest I’ve never actually proceeded to the storing part of this recipe, as they disappear the moment they hit the cake rack.

Tips

Caramelization around the edges, too

Use really good quality frozen puff pastry here (not the knock-off brands), since you want to taste the butter and you want lots of layers. I usually buy Pepperidge Farms for this.

Likewise, the cinnamon should be fresh and not the musty stuff that’s been hanging around for ages. Health food stores often sell ground cinnamon in bulk so that you can buy a small amount at a time.