Exclusive Recipe from Season by Mark Moriarty: Burnt Basque Cheesecake

If you’re not a confident cook, this is the dish for you. You basically blend everything together and then burn it in the oven! It has really come into fashion in recent years; I was surprised to find it is only a recently created dish, first appearing in the early 90s at the La Viña restaurant in San Sebastian. The magic happens when it’s sliced into wedges, the blackened exterior giving way to a striking pale interior, filled with sweetened cream cheese, vanilla and set with eggs. The burnt exterior crucially adds the bitter edge to cut through the richness of the cake.

 - Mark Moriarty

Ingredients

Serves 8

1 tbsp softened salted butter, for lining the tin

840g cream cheese

240g caster sugar

200g sour cream

30g plain flour

4 eggs

2 vanilla pods, split in half and seeds scraped out

1 pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 220°C, leaving plenty of space above the middle shelf of the oven.

2. To line the tin, cut two large square sheets of baking parchment, then lay one on top of the other, one sheet turned 45 degrees so the corners point in different directions with 8 evenly spaced points. Lightly butter a round 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin and push the parchment in, pressing into the base and up the sides, making sure plenty of the paper is above the rim of the cake tin.

3. For the cake mix, place the cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl or stand mixer and whisk for 1–2 minutes until the grains of sugar have dissolved. Add the sour cream, flour, eggs, vanilla seeds and a pinch of salt. Whisk for a minute until smooth. Pour and scrape the mix into the lined cake tin, then tap the cake tin on the counter to remove air bubbles. 

4. Bake for 30–35 minutes until deeply caramelised on the top but still with a wobble when you shake the tin. It will rise up like a soufflé but sink as it cools. Leave to cool completely in the tin.

5. Once cooled, cut into wedges to serve.