Mini Burnt Chocolate Basque Cheesecake

This refined recipe for chocolate Basque cheesecake is SO SIMPLE with the most impressive results.  Find a detailed step-by-step with tips and tricks below or skip right to the recipe and get baking! This cheesecake does not miss.

I’ve always felt like making a cheesecake, at home, from scratch was rather unreasonable.  You mean to tell me I’m supposed to break the bank on dairy products and eggs, pour them all into a leaky bottom pan, cover than pan in foil that rips if a sharp word is spoken, AND THEN place that whole precarious operation in WATER and somehow get that into A HOT OVEN?  Honestly? I’ve run the numbers (aka, tried to bake more than one cheesecake this way) and my stats aren’t great. I blame foil, and a general skepticism which is why this salted caramel cheesecake pie has been my go-to cheesecake until I discovered this Basque beauty.

Basque Cheesecake, as you might expect, come from a restaurant named La Vina in San Sebastian, Spain.  Unlike it’s American cousin, Basque cheesecake is made without crust, without a fussy water bath, and at a high temperature to caramelize the top. It feels like a magic trick It’s truly so much more simple than it appears and I want it to make cheesecake bakers out of all of us –  I promise.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this Chocolate Basque Cheesecake:

•  cream cheese at room temperature

•  unsweetened cocoa powder

•  melted chocolate

•  granulated sugar

•  espresso powder

•  heavy cream

•  large eggs

•  vanilla extract

•  salt

•  This cake is baked in ungreased parchment paper and 6-inch round 3-inch tall cake pan. The sides and size of the cake pan are important for the structure of the chocolate Basque cheesecake so there are no substitutes.  

Start by beating softened cream cheese with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer with a paddle attachment in a large bowl.  Just beat the cream cheese around to make sure it’s entirely softened and pliable.

Beat in the sugar, followed by cocoa powder and espresso (or coffee powder).  It’s best to work any lumps out of the cocoa and espresso powder with the back of a spoon or by pressing the powders through a fine mesh strainer.  Coffee and chocolate lumps are hard to work out of the batter once they’re in there.

Whip in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth and well combined.

Stir the melted chocolate into the batter mixture followed by heavy cream.  The batter should feel entirely irresistible at this point.

Spoon the thick chocolate batter into an ungreased 6-inch pan lined with ungreased parchment paper. I like to crinkle the parchment paper so it fits into the edges of the pan better but you should do what you think is best.

What we do know is that this is a million times better than a springform pan.

The chocolate Basque cheesecake bakes at 450 degrees F for 25 minutes which feels like an insane thing to do to a cheesecake, but trust the process. The cake will bake to puffed and burnt across the top and maybe split across the side – that’s perfect.  That’s beauty.  But the cake isn’t done after it comes out of the oven.  Time in the fridge is part of the baking process just as much as the oven, and we’re talking at least four hours in the refrigerator – hot from the oven, still in the pan and paper.

Once the cheesecake is baked and cool baked, shimmy out of the pan, peel the paper away and top with whipping cream whipped to soft peaks.

Because I can’t leave well enough alone and because fall fruit is GORGEOUS and doesn’t get enough credit, we’re really going for gemstone colored bounty once the cake is baked.

This is one of those cheesecake recipes you’ll have in your life forever, starting now.  This is your dinner party trick – every time.

The texture is silky smooth, chilled, forkable chocolate mousse.

The creaminess is liable to bring a tear to your eye.

And I know – I KNOW it sounds like I’m overstating a lil 6-inch cheesecake but I trust you’ll make one for yourself to find out I’m not.

xo

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