Honey ginger cheesecake with tomato jam

This is a very Taiwanese take on cheesecake. For one thing, it’s small and cute and light. 

Second, the sweetness has been cut way back. Not only that, but honey is used instead of sugar, which both matches that lovely jam from last week and also inserts a gentle warmth into each bite. Amplifying all this is a crust made from gingerbread cookie crumbs. 

And finally, that tomato jam beautifies an already stunningly caramelized top. A flavor profile like this is completely in line with the Chinese love for surprise, since the red jam suggests that cherries are in the offing, when actually something else is decorating the cake.

Even if you’ve never baked a cheesecake in your life, this way with cheesecakes is so easy to pull together that you will be amazed. 

Not chocolate... caramelized honey!

Here are a couple of secrets to make sure that the cake doesn’t crack and keeps its beautiful, mirror-like top:

First, use only room-temperature cream cheese, yogurt, and eggs. 

Second, use a handheld mixer to beat the cheese mixture. It’s too easy to work a bunch of air into the cheese with a stand mixer, but if that’s all you have, then be sure to keep the stand mixer’s speed on low and mix for as short a time as possible.

Third, let the cheesecake cool down slowly. Release the sides with a knife to prevent the cake from clinging to the pan as it continues to gradually collapse in an even manner. Then, refrigerate the cake when it’s come to room temperature.

Chunky cookies...

Honey ginger cheesecake with tomato jam

Fēngmì jiāngxiāng rŭlào dàngāo  蜂蜜薑香乳酪蛋糕

My take on Taiwanese pastry

Serves 6

Crust:

Spray oil

¾ cup | 90 g gingerbread cookie crumbs

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

cooked down to a smooth crust

Filling: 

6 tablespoons | 135 g honey

Around 1 pound | 500 g cream cheese, room temperature

¼ cup | 75 g sweetened Greek yogurt

Pinch of salt

2 large eggs, room temperature and lightly beaten

½ teaspoon lemon extract, optional

Boiling water, as needed

½ recipe tomato and candied ginger jam

1. Spray the inside of a 6 inch | 15 cm springform cake pan with oil. Wrap the outside with two sheets of foil to prevent the butter from dribbling out into your oven and making a smoky mess. Set your oven rack in the center and heat the oven to 350°F | 175°C.

Fill the pan

2. Place the cookies in a plastic bag and bash them about with a rolling pin. You don’t have to crush them finely, as they will smooth out as they bake. Toss the crumbs with the melted butter and then spread this over the bottom of the cake pan. Bake the crust for about 8 minutes, or until the edges are slightly browned. Remove from the oven, but keep the foil wrapped around the pan.

3. Spray oil in a small measuring cup before pouring out the honey, as this will make it a whole lot easier to scrape out all the honey. Use a handheld mixer to beat the cream cheese only until it looks creamy – you don’t want to beat lots of air into it at any point, so stop when you can’t seen any large lumps. 

Water bath for even heat

4. Mix in the honey, yogurt, and salt only until they disappear into the cheese, and then gently beat in the eggs and optional lemon extract. When the mixture looks like sour cream, scrape this into the cake pan and gently shake the pan to even out the filling. 

5. Set the foil-wrapped cake pan in an 8-inch | 20-cm square pan and pour boiling water around the cake pan to create a water bath (aka a bain marie). Place the pans in the oven and bake for 75 to 90 minutes, or until the cheesecake is barely set. The top will caramelize somewhere along the way, and the cake will smell incredibly good. It will also have risen a whole lot like a soufflé at this point. 

6. Remove the pans and set them on the stove to cool off for 5 minutes or so – don’t remove the cake pan from the water bath, as you want the cheesecake to cool down very slowly. After 5 or so minutes, carefully run a sharp knife around the edge of the cheesecake to release it, as this will help reduce cracking. 

Souffle action!

7. After about 30 minutes, remove the cheesecake from the water bath to let it cool down a bit faster. After another 30 minutes, cover the cheesecake and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight, but keep the bottom wrapped in foil just in case some butter has escaped down there.

7. Just before serving, remove the cake from the pan to a pretty plate and either cover its top with the tomato jam or serve it on the side.

Canned tomatoes provided by the folks at Greatest Tomatoes from Europe - grazie mille! 

Lemon crunch cake for the Lunar New Year

I grew up in the San Jose area, and if there is one dish we San Joseans can call our own, it’s burnt almond cake. I have no idea why this is such a big deal there. 

A couple of local bakeries—namely Dick’s and Peter’s—now lay claim to the best of the best of the best, but in my memory, the champion cake was made by Greenlee’s.

This has a lot to do with hometown pride and neighborliness, for the Greenlee family lived a couple of houses down from my mother’s parent’s house in the Rose Garden District, right near the Rosicrucian Museum. 

A pile of gold

My mom’s family never was rolling in wealth (to put it mildly), so we rarely got to eat bakery goods. And so, it was cause for celebration whenever we actually found a paper bakery box hanging out in Grandma’s kitchen.

My favorite cake was always burnt almond, which is strange, because in all other areas I was a die-hard chocoholic. 

Something about this cake, though, was totally addictive to me: pure white cake sandwiched the custard filling, and then the outside plastered with buttercream and sugared, sliced, toasted almonds. Nothing about it was burnt, but it was sheer heaven, false advertising notwithstanding.

The start of caramelization

I was wondering lately whether I should make this cake for a trip down memory lane, but I can’t handle super sweet cakes anymore. So, I crossed those old memories with a Chinese preference for dialed-back sweetness to make something suitable for the Lunar New Year. 

I ended up with a Taiwan-style lemon chiffon cake as the base. What makes this really Taiwanese is that I added the absolute minimum sugar I thought I could get away with both there and in the fresh cream frosting. And then instead of the custard filling, we have more whipped cream. 

The result is this super light, lemony bit of fluff covered with crispy caramel shards. My husband even gave it the perfect Chinese name, which means “10,000 taels of gold,” turning this into a wish for wealth for all who get a slice. Sounds good to me...

Candy lava

In many ways, this is like the famous Blum’s coffee crunch cake. Which is wonderful, no question. With this lemon crunch cake, though, I can easily eat half of it in one go and still eye the rest of it with eager plans for it later on in the day.

This would be the perfect cake for Chinese New Year, which is coming up on February 15^th this year. Happy Year of the Dog!

Lemon crunch cake chez Huang

Huángjiā huángjīn wànliăng dàngāo 黃家黃金萬兩蛋糕

Serves 6 to 8

Break up the candy into shards

Candy:

1 teaspoon baking soda, sifted

¾ cup | 150 g sugar

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Cake:

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons | 70 g cake flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon sea salt

4 large egg whites at room temperature

½ cup | 100 g superfine sugar, divided in half

3 large egg yolks at room temperature

Fresh lemon zest

¼ cup | 60 ml flavorless oil, like canola

6 tablespoons | 90 ml water

Zest of 2 lemons

1 tablespoon lemon extract

Frosting:

2 cups | 450 ml chilled whipping cream

2 tablespoons superfine sugar

2 teaspoons lemon extract

1. First make the candy: Have a baking sheet lined with either Silpat or oiled foil ready. Sift the baking soda to remove all the lumps and set it near your stove. Place the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a clean wok and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring it occasionally with a silicone spatula. Boil it for a few minutes until it starts to caramelize, then swirl the syrup around and wait until it is a faint golden color. 

Lighten the batter with the whites

2. Remove the wok from the heat, wait 10 seconds, and then sprinkle the baking soda over the top of the syrup. When you stir these together, they will foam up into an impressive mound of lava, and once it starts to deflate, scrape all of it quickly and efficiently onto the waiting baking sheet. Use your spatula to smear it out into a thin layer. It will harden in just a few seconds, so don’t get distracted while you are doing this. Once the candy has hardened, break it up into small shards, but not crumbs. Pile the candy into a container, put on the lid, and refrigerate it until just before serving. Soak the wok and spatula to remove the candy residue.

2. Now get ready to make the cake. Set a rack just below the center of your oven and heat it to 350°F | 175°C. Line the bottom of an 8-inch | 20-cm tall springform cake pan with parchment paper—you don’t need to cut the paper into a circle, just clamp it onto the bottom of the pan. Do not oil the cake pan.

A super light chiffon cake

3. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small work bowl. Use a stand or hand mixer to beat the egg whites until they are foamy, and then sprinkle in half of the sugar before beating them until they are stiff but not dry. Scrape the beaten whites into a clean bowl. In the same mixer, beat the yolks until they are light, and then beat in the rest of the sugar and then the oil, water, zest, and extract. Finally, beat in the flour mixture until the batter is smooth.

4. Fold about a third of the beaten egg whites into the batter to lighten it up, and then carefully fold in the rest of the whites until you don’t see more than a few streaks. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan, gently smooth the top, and slide this into the oven. Bake it for around 30 minutes, or until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Take the pan from the oven and invert it onto a cake rake to help prevent it from deflating. When the cake is completely cool, unlock the pan to release the sides and peel off the paper. The cake can be wrapped in plastic at this point and refrigerated for a few days, or even frozen for longer storage.

Dust the center with more shards

5. An hour or so before serving, whip the cream with a stand or hand mixer until you have soft peaks, add the sugar and extract, and then beat the cream until it is stiff.

6. Cut the cake horizontally in half with a bread knife. Spread about a quarter of the cream on the cut surface, sprinkle on the smaller shards and all the candy dust, and replace the top of the cake. Frost the tops and sides with the rest of the cream. Press the remaining candy evenly into the tops and sides of the cake. Serve cold.