What Makes A Basque Cheesecake Special?

Take one look at a Basque-style cheesecake and you might not be too impressed at first. They're never garnished with anything, and with their burnished and nearly blackened top, it'd be hard not to wonder if the cake is downright burnt. But the truth is that this dessert, which has become trendy over the past few years, is something beyond just a regular cheesecake.

In terms of ingredients, Basque-style cheesecakes are very simple and not much different from their American counterparts: They only include cream cheese, eggs, cream, sugar, and a touch of flour to bind things up. But where cheesecakes are normally baked low and slow in a water bath in order to set up gently, Basque cheesecakes are created without one. And because they're baked at a high temperature, they naturally fluff up in the oven and deflate dramatically as an aftereffect, developing cracks, along with a deep brown, if not blackened color — which is the antithesis of how we Americans make our cheesecakes. And there's no crust or base, it's all pure filling from top to bottom (which frankly is the best part anyway). Think of it as a cheesecake that defies all the rules.

The cheesecake hails from the Basque region of Spain, from a restaurant called La Viña, which was founded in San Sebastián in 1959. The cake, however, wouldn't come about until 1988, when Santi Rivera, the son of one of the co-founders of La Viña, Eladio Rivera, invented it after some serious experimentation. The cake originally featured quark-style cheese, which is a soft spreadable cheese made with soured milk. Now it's made with a Philadelphia-style cream cheese at the restaurant, which still sells the cake to this very day, along with other Basque dishes like pintxos, which are small snacks that accompany drinks.

But you don't have to head to Spain to try a Basque cheesecake for yourself. Recipes and interpretations of it are widely available online and The Cheesecake Factory even once tried its hand at them. Since they don't require much by way of equipment other than a hand mixer (or a stand mixer, if you have one), parchment paper, and a springform pan, this is something you can easily replicate at home. And trust me, it's worth it — a friend of mine once treated me to some of his homemade version, and it really was something special, creamy and reminiscent of flan, with that caramelized top. If you think a cheesecake is just a cheesecake, try the Basque version and you may be rethinking your entire sweet tooth's worldview.