German Cheesecake

German cheesecake or in Käsekuchen in Deutsch is a common cake in Germany. The main ingredient in making this cake is using quark and not cream cheese as in most cheesecakes. Quark is a type of cheese commonly used in Germany. I´m not sure whether quark is available outside Germany.

A friend of mine, Kak Liza has been living in Germany for the past 30 years and she had learnt making this cheesecake from her German friend and now she has taught me how to make it. One more thing about German cheesecake, it has crust on the bottom and on the sides of the cake and less sweet (German dessert normally less sweet than usual). So Kak Liza told me she usually adds more sugar as we Malays have sweet tooth.

The recipe:

For the crust:

- 150g all-purpose flour

- 65 g butter (melt in microwave)

-40 g sugar

-1 tsp baking powder

- 1 egg

For the batter:

- 200g heavy cream

- 750g quark

- 200g all-purpose flour

- 300g sugar

- 5 eggs

- 2 packets of vanilla sugar/pudding powder

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 170C

2. In a bowl, mix the above ingredients and knead until it forms a dough. If it sticks to your finger, add flour a little bit from time to time while kneading until it forms soft dough. Using a spring form, cut a baking paper in accordance to the size of the spring form base. Lay the baking paper on top of the base. Take about a half of the crust dough and roll as thin as possible and lay it on top of baking paper. Cover the sides of the spring form with the remaining dough. Make sure the layer is thin as possible. Put aside.

3. In a bowl, beat the double cream (using mixer) until small bubbles form. Add quark, sugar, flour, eggs and vanilla powder. Beat until all ingredients mix well.

4. Pour the batter into the crust-lined spring form.

5. Bake the cake for about 1 hour.

6. Take it from the oven and cool it down on a cooling rack.

Make sure that the cake is properly cooled down before removing the spring form or to be cut. Otherwise, the cake may have cracks on its sides.