GERMAN CHEESECAKE - KÄSEKUCHEN FOR EX-PATS

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Americans and Germans have a lot in common. One is their love for cheese cake. Though both pastries taste great, Käsekuchen is distinctly different from its US cousin.

Cheesecake crust is made with cookie crumbs, very practical, and a good recycling of even stale cookies. German Käsekuchen has a short crust, more fuss, but buttery decadence.

The real difference, though, is the filling. American filling, made of mild, more neutral cream cheese, can be varied with many different flavors (like Limoncello-Cheesecake). Käsekuchen is made with quark, a fresh cow milk cheese that is less creamy, more acidic, and contains more water.

Limoncello Cheesecake - one of the many variations

Quark (curd cheese), the base for many different types of European pastries and desserts is unfortunately hard to find in the US, or outrageously expensive - and it doesn't taste the same.

Though in desserts quark will be often paired with fruits, German cheese cake bakers tend to purism, the filling might have raisins, and sometimes other fruits, like sour cherries or apples.

Another important difference: German Käsekuchen is notably less heavy and dense than its somewhat massive American counterpart (in spite of the short crust!).

Though I do like American cheese cake with its seemingly endless variations, I love my German Käsekuchen.

But how to re-create it in this sadly quark-less country?

I looked at the traditional recipe in the Mother of German Baking Books (in English: "German Baking Today,) and started with the adaptation process.

By separating and beating egg whites stiff you can make baked goods airier and lighter, I needed more egg white. I didn't want to use heavy cream, because cream cheese is creamy and rich by nature, but one more egg yolk wouldn't hurt.

I also upped the lemon taste - cream cheese is less acidic and, in my opinion, only a lemony Käsekuchen deserves the name.

The result of several cakes worth of testing was finally a "real" German Käsekuchen - my husband's absolute favorite (with cherries).

My husband loves Käsekuchen with cherries

GERMAN KÄSEKUCHEN

Crust
125 g all-purpose flour
25 g whole wheat pastry flour
½ tsp. baking powder
50 g sugar
2 tsp. vanilla sugar, or 1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
1 egg
75 g butter

Filling
750 g cream cheese (regular or low fat)
100 g sugar, (or more if using a big lemon)
1 lemon, juice and zest
4 eggs, separated
2 cups sour cherries, pitted (fresh, frozen, or glass) (optional)
powdered sugar, for dusting


CRUST:
Preheat oven at 400ºF/200ºC. Drain sour cherries, if using.

Mixer: Sift flour and baking powder in mixing bowl, then add other crust ingredients. Knead first at low speed, then increase gradually to medium speed as dough firms up. Knead until smooth.

Or simply process all ingredients in a Food Processor.

The Food Processor makes short work with the dough

Roll out 2/3 of dough over the bottom of a 28 cm/11" (not yet assembled) springform pan (greasing the bottom is not necessary). If the dough sticks to the rolling pin, cover it with plastic foil.

Grease and attach rim. Shape rest of dough into a long rope, adding 1 tbsp. flour if necessary. Press dough rope along the side of the pan to make a rim.

Or, simply, place all the dough in the pan, and press and pat it in place, pushing it up the sides to make a rim.

Prick dough several times with fork to prevent air bubbles from forming.

Bake crust for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Lower oven temperature to 350ºF/175ºC.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and lemon until smooth

FILLING
In mixer bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice and zest until smooth. Add egg yolks, one by one (don't overmix.)

In separate bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold into cream cheese mixture.

Distribute cherries evenly on pre-baked crust. Pour cream cheese mixture over crust and smooth with spatula.

Pour filling over pre-baked crust and smooth with rubber spatula

Bake for 70 - 80 minutes, or until needle comes out clean. Leave cake in switched-off oven, door slightly ajar, to cool slowly, as long as possible.

Finish cooling on wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Käsekuchen tastes even better the next day, and keeps in a cool place for several days.

A quarter is gone already!

And if you visit Portland, ME you can even sample my delicious German Käsekuchen: the nice (and authentic) German Restaurant Schulte & Herr serves it, baked from my recipe!

(Completely updated and rewritten, originally posted 7/2011)

RHUBARB-EIERSCHECKE-TORTE - A DRESDEN SPECIALTY

  Hier geht's zur deutschen Version  dieses Posts

The first time I heard about a cake called "Eierschecke", when I saw my cousin Uta's post in facebook. "Eier" is the German term for eggs, and "Schnecke" (snail)) is a common name for pinwheel shaped pastry, but I had not the slightest idea what "Schecke" meant, or where it might come from.

I looked it up at Wikipedia, and learned that this specialty from Thuringia and Saxony was named for a three tiered, medieval tunic for men. The cake had, obviously, three layers: crust, quark filling with apples or poppy seed, plus a custard topping.

Medieval schecke - male predecessor of the mini skirt?

I had never visited Dresden before, but in May we went on a trip to Saxony, and there it was:  every bakery offered Schecke, subspecies Dresdner Eierschecke. It came in many variations, yeasted dough or sweet crust, raisin-studded or not, baked as bar or torte.

My husband always gets this devout look in his face when he enters a German bakery. I, of course, view it also as continuing education, and sample solely for scientific purposes. Faithful to the Anderson credo: "Life is Uncertain - Eat the Dessert First!" we conducted a thorough investigation.

Dresdner Eierschecke bars (left of the tortes)

As a result of this extensive field work, I looked for a recipe, soon as we were home. I'm no great friend of raisins, and don't like it too sweet, therefore I wanted my cake to be a bit tart and fruity.

You can get apples, a classic Schecke ingredient, all year long, but now it was rhubarb season, and I had some in my fridge. So I entered "Eierschecke" and "Rhabarber" (rhubarb) in Google's search box, and promptly struck gold.

This recipe, posted by Thomas (Tolotika) in kochbar.de, was the one I liked best. It had a sweet crust, the rhubarb sauce was thickened with vanilla pudding powder, and the custard not only contained eggs, sour cream and pudding, but also quark.

Much as I love quark - it's almost impossible to find in the US, and even if you do, it is outrageously expensive and doesn't taste the same. Therefore I use for my German Cheesecake cream cheese as stand-in. Mixed with lemon juice and whipped egg white, it comes closest to quark in taste and consistency.

I reduced the amount of sugar in the custard by half, but the cake is still sweet enough.

There was another problem to solve. Though Richard and I like to eat cake, it's only the two of us, and I couldn't imagine that the airy egg mixture on top of the fruit layer would last several days without getting soggy.

So, back to asking uncle Google, this time for: "conversion large cakes small cakes". Is there anything at all that you can't find in the w.w.w.? Keikos-cakes.com has a very user friendly pan conversion tool on their website. (And it does rectangular pans, too!)

To convert a recipe for a 10-inch/26-cm diameter torte to a 7-inch/18-cm tortelet, you enter the pan size of the recipe and your desired pan size in Keiko's pan conversion tool and, voilà, there is the factor you need (0.48)! Now grab your calculator and multiply each recipe ingredient with 0.48.  

The result was everything I had looked for! The tangy rhubarb makes a pleasant contrast to the sweet custard, and the whole thing is so airy and fluffy that I'm sure it doesn't have a single calorie!

RHUBARB EIERSCHECKE TORTE (adapted from Tolotika at kochbar.de)

(6 servings for a 7"/18 cm diameter cake pan)

RHUBARB

454 g/1 lb rhubarb, cut in 0.5"/1 cm pieces

  75 g/3 oz sugar

  21 g/0.7 oz vanilla pudding powder

SWEET CRUST

120 g/4.2 oz all-purpose flour

  30 g/1 oz sugar

  60 g/2 oz cold butter, cut in pieces

 1/2 egg *)

 1/2 tsp. baking powder

semolina and breadcrumbs (for sprinkling)

*) How to divide an egg into halves? It's easy: on a scale, crack an egg into a cup, stir well, and then take off half with a spoon.

EIERSCHECKE CUSTARD
 60 g/2 oz cream cheese
 60 g/2 oz sour cream

 40 g/1.5 oz sugar (original recipe: 84 g/3 oz)

       2 eggs, separated

     1 ½ tsp lemon juice

         1 tsp lemon zest

 10 g/0.35 oz vanilla pudding powder

EVENING:
In a bowl, stir together rhubarb and sugar. Mix well. Cover, and leave overnight at room temperature.

MORNING:
Drain rhubarb in a strainer over a bowl. Reserve 170 ml/5.75 fl oz of the juice (I didn't have quite enough juice, so I substituted with a bit of milk.)

Grease a 7-inch/18-cm diameter springform, and sprinkle with semolina.

Process sweet crust, until no loose flour remains in the bowl

Food Processor: Briefly pulse flour with baking powder and sugar to combine. Add egg and butter pieces. Pulse, until mixture comes together, and no loose flour remains on the bottom of the bowl. Or knead all ingredients by hand, or with a handheld mixer.

Shape dough into a ball, flatten into a disk, transfer to prepared springform pan, and press into bottom, making a small rim around the sides. Refrigerate, until ready to fill.

Sweet crust bottom layer

Preheat oven to 435ºF/225ºC. Place rack on middle rung.

Following instructions on the package, prepare vanilla pudding with pudding powder and reserved rhubarb juice. Add rhubarb, and stir well. Leave mixture to cool a little bit.

Spread vanilla pudding with rhubarb pieces over unbaked crust

Pre-bake cake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 410ºF/210º.

For the custard, beat cream cheese, sour cream and sugar, until well combined. Add egg yolks, one by one, and mix to incorporate. Mix in lemon juice and zest. Whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold egg whites in egg/cream mixture.

Gently fold stiff egg whites into egg/cream mixture

Pour Eierschecke custard over pre-baked torte and smooth with plastic spatula.

Spread eierschecke custard over pre-baked torte

Bake torte for about 20 minutes, or until set (but elastic to touch.) Leave for at least 15 minutes in switched-off oven with door slightly ajar.

Let Rhubarb-Eierschecke cool on wire rack. (It will sag a little bit.)

Freshly baked, the Eierschecke-Torte looks like cheese cake.

Or, like the greedy Andersons, eat it while it is still warm!!!

Never forget: "Life is Uncertain - Eat the Dessert First..."

Beautiful Dresden is really worth a trip - not just for the famous Eierschecke!