This San Sebastian Cheesecake is creamy, dreamy and so simple to make with just 6 ingredients. With a signature burnt top we add a bit more flavour to this by adding Vietnamese coffee to it! I promise if you love the original, you'll love this delicious coffee version with a coffee condensed milk sauce even more! All you need is 5 minutes prep to make this wonderful cheesecake.
About This San Sebastian Cheesecake
San Sebastian Cheesecakes or Burnt Basque cheesecakes are the simplest cheesecakes to ever make and take around 5 minutes prep time total. They have no cookie base so it's a matter of whizzing everything up in the Thermomix or food processor. Seriously, it's life changing how easy it is to make these. I never order this cake when I go out because I know how easy it is to make!
But then I got to thinking. We went to Vietnam recently and we drank a lot of Vietnamese coffee. And I wondered how a Vietnamese coffee San Sebastian cheesecake would taste. It tastes even better than a regular vanilla Basque Cheesecake! It's also so easy to make.
Ingredients for Coffee San Sebastian Cheesecake
Cream cheese - use full fat cream cheese bricks
Double cream - Use double cream rather than single or thickened cream just to make this super creamy.
Caster or superfine sugar - to sweeten the cake
Instant coffee powder - can use Vietnamese or any instant coffee powder. Do not use ground coffee as it will not dissolve
Eggs - Use large eggs, at room temperature.
Sweetened condensed milk - Not evaporated milk. Sweetened condensed milk has sugar added to it and is the unique ingredient in Vietnamese milk coffee.
Vietnamese coffee - Make a cup of Vietnamese coffee or make a regular espresso coffee if that's what you have.
Tips For Making San Sebastian Cheesecake
1 - Make sure that the cream cheese is softened. I take the bricks of cream cheese out of the packaging and put them in the microwave on 30% power in 1 minute increments until it is very soft. This is important to give the cheesecake as smooth a texture as possible.
2 - Only use instant coffee powder (rather than ground coffee) as instant coffee will dissolve and not leave any sediment.
3 - I use an extra wide parchment roll that will cover the 20cm/8inch tin (from Aldi). If you have smaller parchment, you may need two sheets overlapping.
4 - You can serve this cheesecake still warm where the centre will be slightly runny. Or you can refrigerate this for 6 hours or overnight to firm up.
5 - Tip for slicing up cheesecake cleanly: Have a large cup of hot water and a paper towel ready. Dip a chef's knife into the hot water, dry on paper towel and slice. Each time you make a cut, dip it in the hot water and then dry on paper towel. This will produce perfectly clean slices every single time!
15g/0.5oz instant coffee powder (can use Vietnamese or any instant coffee powder)
5 eggs
For Vietnamese Coffee Sauce
250ml/8.8ozs sweetened condensed milk
50ml/1.7flozs Vietnamese coffee
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 210C/410F conventional or 190C/374F fan forced. Take a large sheet of parchment and scrunch up into a ball. Wet with water and unfurl and spread out and line a 20cm/8inch springform pan with it, pushing it out onto the sides. Curl the edges over the sides of a 20cm/8inch baking tin.
Step 2 - Take the cream cheese bricks out of the foil packaging and place on a plate in the microwave and heat on 30% power in 1 minute increments until very soft. Place in the food processor with the cream and sugar and process for 30 seconds on high. Scrape down the sides and process for 30 seconds again until very smooth. Thermomix directions: set to 30 seconds, speed 10, scrape down sides and repeat. Whisk coffee powder and eggs together and add to the cream cheese mixture and blend for 10 seconds until smooth and well combined. Thermomix directions: set to 10 seconds, speed #4.
Step 3 - Pour into the lined baking tin and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 40-45 minutes turning halfway. The top should be browned and the centre should still jiggle somewhat. Cool at room temperature for 1 hour, then cover and refrigerate overnight.
Step 4 - Mix the condensed milk with the Vietnamese coffee to make a sauce. Slice the cheesecake up and serve with the sauce on the side to pour on top.
Personal Note
I got the coffee powder for this recipe from our recent trip to Vietnam but you can really use any sort of coffee for this recipe. The hotel we were staying at in Vietnam had Vietnamese milk powder instant sachets that were so good that I took some with me.
For part of our trip, we were cruising down the Mekong River from Cambodia to Vietnam and we had a great guide called Bang for the Vietnam portion of our trip. He started us off with a quiz which is always fun. "What are the three types of shops you will find every 300 metres?" he asked us. "Coffee shops or cafes!" I said as that was the first thing that came to mind. That turned out to be one of them. Another girl Sarah said, "Pharmacy!" and she was right. And then it was up to everyone else to guess the third thing sold. "There's a prize for every right guess!" said Bang. Everyone else shouted out everything from rice, gasoline, mobile phones, scooters to coconuts but these weren't the correct answer.
Another day we stopped by this island town where they sold coffee powder to make Vietnamese coffee. I picked up a bag of it along with a bag of locally grown cacao powder. All I needed now was one of those metal Vietnamese Phin drip coffee filters. When we got back on the bus Bang asked us again for a third guess. Someone finally guessed that it was a grocery store and we had all three guesses marked. And he was right, in busy areas, there was always a store selling these three things. Bang's explanation was, "We're basically lazy, we don't want to walk a long way to get the essentials." And considering how hot it was I totally understood that.
On our last day of the cruise I realised that I needed to buy a Phin filter but then Mr NQN showed me the prize from Bang and it was one of those Phin coffee makers! I feel as though my Vietnamese version of the San Sebastian cheesecake had a support in the universe who bestowed me everything that I needed to make this :)
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried making San Sebastian cheesecake? Would you have guessed those three shops? And do things sometimes just fall in your lap like this?
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