Chèvre Cheesecake

Chèvre Cheesecake

Gluten Free

The perfect cheesecake for celebrating a birthday on the farm, using farm-produced dairy.

It takes many hours to make, including cooling time, so best made a day ahead, although you could make it in one day if you got an early start. The cheesecake needs a 9-inch springform pan.

For decorating and an accompaniment on each piece:

Cajeta, or milk jam, made from goat milk. This takes about 3 hours to make, and I’m not including instructions here. Or serve it with a drizzle of farm-made blackberry sauce.

For the crust:

Ingredients:

  • If you have time, make an even better crust by first making GF ginger snaps. See Note at end of recipe. 
  • 3 cups gluten free oats (255g)
  • ½ cup light brown sugar (113g)
  • 2 Tablespoons honey, warmed up if it’s too thick to mix in
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 6 Tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, salt and oil, and mix and mush together with your hands until evenly mixed and coated.
  3.  Spread out evenly in a single layer on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 25 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
  4. Let cool completely, about 10 to 15 minutes.  Oats will harden as they cool to a granola-like texture; stir occasionally to keep from sticking to the pan.
  5. Transfer to a food processor.  Pulse 2 or 3 times to break up any larger pieces then process on high for 30 to 60 seconds until the oats resemble coarse crumbs.
  6. Add the coarse oat crumbs to a medium size bowl.  While stirring, slowly pour melted butter over the oats.  Then mix with your hands until all the crumbs are coated with the melted butter, and transfer to a 9″ springform pan to make the crust.
  7. Spread with your fingers into an even layer on the bottom of the pan, then pack down firmly.  Bake at 350°F for 7 minutes.  Let cool for a bit, then stick in the freezer while you make the cheesecake batter.

For the cheesecake:

Ingredients:

  • 2 pounds chèvre (soft goat cheese), at room temperature. It doesn’t matter how wet or dry the chèvre is.
  • 1 ½ cups white sugar
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature (7 oz or 212 g)
  • ¾ cup goat milk (or sheep or coconut or probably any milk)
  • 8 ounces sheep milk yogurt
  • ¼ cup gluten-free all-purpose baking flour (I used Cup4Cup)
  • 1 Tablespoon gluten-free vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
  2. Put prepared springform pan with crust in freezer if you didn’t already do that.
  3. Beat chèvre and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. If you don’t have a stand mixer, it’s OK to use a hand held electric mixer.
  4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition.
  5. Mix in goat milk.
  6. Place flour in medium bowl, and add yogurt a little at a time so the flour mixes in smoothly and doesn’t clump. Add the vanilla and mix well. Add this mixture to the main bowl and mix just until incorporated. Pour batter into chilled crust.
  7. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, on a cookie sheet to catch pan leakage. Turn the oven off, keep the door closed, and allow cheesecake to cool inside for at least 2 hours.
  8. Refrigerate for an additional 4 to 6 hours before serving.
  9. Decorate and serve with cajeta.

I made this for my makhatena’s birthday on 6/25/23. I combined two recipes I found online, and made some modifications, and plan to make a few more, so my instructions here reflect the way I plan to make it next time.

Update 8/5/23: chèvre was dry, so we’ll see how it comes out. I still could not get the flour mixture completely smooth. I whisked it well, and added it anyway. Chèvre mixture was also not completely smooth. After adding the flour mixture, I beat the batter on high for 2 minutes. It still showed small lumps when I poured it into the pan. Result: little lumps in the batter, and the dryness of the chèvre, don’t seem to matter at all. The result was still perfect!

Many, many thanks to the original recipe creators:
https://hungerthirstplay.com/gluten-free-nut-free-cheesecake-crust-2/
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/229052/chevre-cheesecake/

Other notes:

  1. CRUST  The original cheesecake calls for a crust made with GF ginger snaps, which sounds delicious, but I couldn’t find any in the store in our small town. It would be fun to make the cookies first, then make the crust from those cookies.

Later: I made these cookies and put them in the freezer to try a different crust next time: Ginger Snaps.  Combine 7 ounces 10.5 ounces  gluten-free gingersnap cookies, finely crushed, with ¼ cup 6 Tablespoons melted butter. Stir until well combined. Press mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and place in the freezer. [Crust was delicious but it might be even better if it’s thicker, so try with the new measurements next time.]

2. PREPPING THE PAN  It’s easiest to leave the cheesecake on the bottom of the springform pan, and serve it that way. You can put it on a pretty platter if you want, on a towel so it doesn’t slide around.

Another alternative, if you have a flat torte pan bottom to use as a spatula to help transfer it, is to grease the springform pan lightly, then line it with parchment paper. Before serving, you can lift up the edge of the parchment paper and use the torte pan bottom to transfer the cake to a serving plate.

 

 

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