Sunday, December 12, 2010

Orange cheesecake Austrian style

IMG_3175

(cheese cake without the marmalade topping)

Austrian? I really don’t know but that’s how I think about this one.  At one time I had a lovely topfen kuchen(at least that’s what I think it was called?) in Vienna and went looking for a similar one ever since. The one I had was encased in a filo dough and the filling had a loose and at the same time creamy mouthfeel. A quest.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this recipe from Michel Roux, nice nice nice! That one day in September (another birthday party) I baked two….  guests had a choice of this cheese cake an apple/peach coffee cake, brownies and chocolate cake. This one and the apple peach coffee cake were polished off completely, people were getting seconds (and thirds!).

Orange Cheese cake
(Michel Roux: Pastry sweet and savoury)

Dough:
125 gr ap flour
100 gr chilled butter, diced
50 gr confectioners sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk

22cm/24 cm round tart pan, 4 cm high, sprayed or lightly buttered
parchment paper and beans for blind baking
Oven temp: 170C for baking the shell / 140C for baking the cake

In a food processer: combine and mix all ingredients and stop just when the dough starts to ball up. Take it out and knead 3 or 4 times quickly with your hands to make a rather smooth dough ball. Wrap in plastic and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hours.

When you are ready to bake take the dough out of the fridge and proceed to roll it out on a lightly floured work surface. You’ll need a circle that fits your 22cm tart pan. (Dough needs to go on the bottom and up on the rim). When shaped place it back into the fridge to thoroughly chill again (at least 20 minutes).

Poke the crust with a fork and line with parchment paper. Pour the raw beans on the paper, bake blind for 30 minutes. Then carefully remove the beans and the paper (optional: you can also brush with a little egg white now to provide an anti-soggy layer) and put the crust back in the oven (“naked”) for another 5 minutes. Get it out and leave to cool on your counter.
Lower the oven temperature and in the meantime prepare your filling:

Filling:
4 oranges (juice and zest) (I ended up using around 1/2 cup of juice)
350 gr fromage frais*
350 gr quark**
150 gr sour cream
175 gr fine granulated sugar
4 eggs

Topping:
6 tbs orange marmalade

Sieve the juice of the 4 oranges. Using a spatula mix fromage frais, quark, sour cream and sugar thoroughly. Whisk the eggs frothy and fold them into the cheese mixture. Add orange juice and zest and stir smooth.

Pour the filling on your base and bake for 1.1/2 hour in a preheated oven: 140C/290F. When it’s properly baked a toothpick should come out clean. Leave the cake in the form to cool for 20 minutes then remove the outer ring and let cool completely. Chill until use.

For the topping: lightly warm the marmalade to a spreading consistency and use the back of a spoon to distribute evenly over the surface of the cake. Wait a couple of minutes to let the jam firm up again and serve.IMG_3139

(a little sugar on the bottom prior to prebaking the crust, another idea is to brush the pre-baked crust with egg white)

* fromage frais? I bought a tub that said fromage frais..but to be honest I think that was just quark, I couldn’t distinguish between this and a regular quark. Consistency of the one I bought was like very thick yoghurt, this one had 3.2 %fat. Next time I find myself in France I’ll check and see what fromage frais is like there. You might Google it and find confusion like I did.

**quark? I used a full fat one, 10% fat. Consistency again of very thick yoghurt, like Greek yoghurt for instance.

{I was afraid that although the recipe mentioned fromage frais I should have bought cream cheese so to make sure the filling wouldn’t go runny on me I added 1 TBS of each custard powder and cornstarch. Just making sure…. but I think it wasn’t really necessary)

8 comments:

  1. This looks and sounds so good. Wonderful to see a cheesecake with quark (and not cream cheese, that is so heavy). I don't make cheesecakes often (cause D and his allergy) but when I see this I think I should and just give him something else. This book of M. Roux... really worth getting??

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Lien, it is really good (the cake) and yes the book is totally worth it! Also because he is French in origin and -thus?- his recipes are more likely to suit our European tastes. (In het nederlands: "taarten, soezen, pasteien")
    Hij geeft een aantal basisrecepten voor verschillende degen en vervolgens véél recepten wat er mee te doen. Helder, duidelijke uitleg en het werkt.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ziet er errug lekker uit! Yummy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That looks and sounds wonderful. I *heart* orange. I made The Bostini from Rose's Heavenly Cakes yesterday: Orange Chiffon Cupcakes with orange-flavored pastry cream (instead of vanilla bean) and dark choc glaze. Yum! I made it into a trifle for a dinner party.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Do you really men Australian? Or rather Austrian? just thinking because you talk about Vienna...

    this "topfen kuchen" you talk about... might have been a "Topfenstrudel" that's what we bake with filo dough and a "topfen" filling.
    Topfenkuchen - as far as I know it around here in Vienna - would be baked quite similar to your recipe here: a shortcrust base filled with "topfen" similar but yet not the same to a "cheesecake"

    Like your recipe and love all sorts of bakery with topfen, so I will try it for a Sunday treat for my family :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aaaarghhh!! You are so right Astrid. Gosh I feel dumb. Grey matter malfunction. Will correct!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for clearing the topfen issue. I really didn't know what it was, only know that I love it!
    Is it something you buy in a pot? What would be similar?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting! I really appreciate and enjoy reading all your comments! If you have any questions feel free to email me.