Tarta de Queso

San Sebastián Burnt Cheesecake, after La Viña

No base, no water bath and an oven turned up far higher than any cheesecake should stand. The top scorches almost black, the edges rise and crack, and the middle stays soft enough to slump when it is cut. It has five ingredients and takes fifteen minutes to mix.

According to San Sebastián's tourism board, the cake was created by Santiago Rivera at La Viña, in the city's old town, about thirty years ago, and spread round the world a decade or so later by word of mouth online. The board gives the recipe as a kilo of cream cheese, seven eggs, 400 g of sugar, a spoonful and a half of flour and half a litre of cream, baked at 210°C for about 40 minutes and cooled for at least four hours.

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 kg full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 400 g caster sugar
  • 7 medium eggs
  • 500 ml double cream
  • 1 1/2 tbsp plain flour (about 15 g)

Method

  1. Prepare the tin Heat the oven to 210°C (190°C fan). Line a 26 cm springform tin with two overlapping sheets of baking paper, pressing them into the corners and leaving them standing 5 cm above the rim. The creases are part of the look.
  2. Mix Beat the cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing gently after each. Stir in the cream, then sift in the flour and mix until just combined. Mix gently throughout: beating in air makes the cake rise and then collapse.
  3. Bake Pour into the tin and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is a very dark brown, the edges have risen and the middle still wobbles freely when the tin is nudged.
  4. Cool Cool in the tin at room temperature for at least 4 hours. The cake sinks and sets as it cools. Unmould, peel back the paper and serve at room temperature.

Food safety

The centre of this cake is deliberately soft and only just set. Use British Lion-marked eggs and keep leftovers in the fridge.

The wobble is correct. If the middle is firm when it comes out, it has been overbaked.

Bring it back to room temperature before serving; it is dull straight from the fridge.

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