A small cake is nice when we want a treat just for ourselves or a few people. It requires less ingredients, thus making it also cheaper to bake, and there are no worries about what to do with the rest of the cake if you just wanted a few slices. Still, you can have 4 big slices or 8 smaller slices from this German style orange cheesecake (käsekuchen). It can also be stored in a fridge for several days and will still taste nice.
To have rich citrus flavour cheesecake we are not only using both, orange zest and orange juice, in the cake, but also adding a top layer made with orange juice.
Ingredients
For the cookie base:
- 125 g / 4.4 oz cookies (Maria, digestive biscuits, Graham crackers or similar)
- 60 g / 0.3 cups unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 40 g / 3 tbsp brown sugar
- zest of 1 orange
For the filling:
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 70 g / 0.3 cups whipping cream/ heavy cream
- 160 g / 0.7 g cottage cheese (quark) or ricotta
- 30 g / 2.5 tbsp granulated sugar
- 15 g / 1.5 tbsp cornstarch
- 60 ml / 4 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
- zest of 1 orange
For the top layer:
- 150 – 200 ml / 0.7 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
- gelatine for the amount of juice you have
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar (optional)
Directions
Making the cookie base:
- Insert a small piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the cake pan and grease the bottom and sides of the cake pan with a bit of oil or butter.
- Zest an orange and crumble the cookies.
- Mix in a bowl the cookie crumbs with the soft butter, sugar and orange zest. Mix everything well so that it somewhat keeps together when you press in a hand.
- Put the cookie mixture in the cake pan and flatten it on the bottom and up the sides of the cake pan. Using a glass helps to flatten the mixture smooth. Put the cake pan in the fridge while preparing the filling.
making the filling:
- Heat the oven to 140° Celsius or 320° Fahrenheit. If your oven usually needs higher temperature than indicated in recipes, set it to 160° Celsius/ 360° Fahrenheit.
- Insert a small dish with water in the oven to create steam.
- Zest the second orange and squeeze juice from both oranges.
- Separate the egg yolk from the egg white in two bowls.
- Add sugar to the egg yolk and beat a little with an electric mixer or a whisk to combine.
- Add and mix in the orange zest, orange juice and quark.
- Sift and mix in the cornstarch so that the batter is smooth.
- Add a pinch of salt to the egg white and beat it till it’s foamy and there is no liquid of the egg white visible. It does not need to be stiff, just slightly beaten.
- Add the whipping cream to the egg white and beat just a little more to combine the egg white and the whipping cream.
- Add the egg white and whipping cream mix to the rest of the batter and gently mix to combine.
- Pour the batter in the cake pan with the prepared cookie base and shake a little so that there is no heap in the middle.
- Bake the cheese cake for about 45-50 minutes on the bottom shelf of the oven till it looks set, but is still soft, a little wiggly when touched.
- Remove the dish with water from the oven and leave the cake in the oven for about half an hour with the oven door slightly open.
- Remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it cool to room temperature.
Making the top layer:
- For the top layer we need about 150 – 200 ml orange juice so that the layer is not too thin, transparent. So it might be needed to squeeze additional orange juice if there is not enough from the two oranges.
- See on the gelatine package you have, how much gelatine is needed for the amount of orange juice you have. I need about one and a half gelatine sheets.
- Pour the orange juice in a small pot and add to it the gelatine. If you use gelatine sheets, cut them in small pieces, so that they soak quicker. Mix and leave for about 10 min for the gelatine to soak.
- Heat the orange juice and gelatine on low heat till the gelatine dissolves. If you want the top layer to be sweeter than the orange juice, which you have, add a little bit of sugar. Once the gelatine has dissolved, remove the pot from the stove and let the orange juice/gelatine mix to cool.
- When it has cooled, carefully pour the mixture on top the cheesecake and put it in the fridge for at least a few hours for the top layer to set and harden.
- To remove the cake from the cake pan, run a knife around the edges to make sure the cake does not stick to the pan. It can be that the juice/gelatine mix went through the cookie base somewhere and that got stuck to the cake pan.
- Enjoy! 🙂
Notes
- For best results, measure ingredients with a scale. All recipes are made with weighed ingredients using grams. Cup measurements are provided for your convenience.