Chateau Gateau

Roopa

The third and final birthday baked good was a Brie cheesecake. My classmate (and birthday girl) Julia helped me out a lot with my Master’s this year, so I told her to make any kind of baking request as a thank you (although really, I love Julia and would have made her anything anyways). She decided on a cheesecake (to put my cheesecake course to good use), so I elected to try make a Brie cheesecake based on this Camembert cheesecake from pastry school. It was a good opportunity to try out a pastry school recipe on my own, but also put a bit of a twist on it. The flavours and texture were really excellent, so I would call this a success!

I basically followed the recipe for the Camembert cheesecake to the letter, down to the Island Farms cream cheese. Chef Marco would be so proud. This recipe is meant to be used with any soft cheese, and you play around with proportions based on the type of cheese used. I felt like Brie is similar to Camembert in potency, so I just used the same proportions. Sadly, I had to make this in a 9″ springform pan – pastry rings are EXTREMELY hard to come by without paying outrageous shipping charges. 

BRIE CHEESECAKE (makes 1 x 9″ cake*)

INGREDIENTS

• sweet pastry crust
• 360 mL homo milk
• 60 g sugar
• 72 g cake flour
• 120 g Brie cheese
• 180 g Island Farms cream cheese
• 600 mL cream
• 1 lemon, juiced
• Jam, we used apricot (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Make a sweet paste crust by cutting a circle with your pastry ring, as well as ~ 2 inch strips to cover the inside of the cake ring. (Instructions for sweet paste here).
2. Pre-bake the sweet paste base until the edges start to show colour. After baking, cover the bottom with jam and sponge crumbs, if desired. Press the sponge crumbs into the jam.
3. Preheat oven to 360 F.
4. Mix together 1/3 of the milk, sugar, and flour.
5. Heat remaining milk with cheese, and add some to the flour mixture.
6. Mix milk into flour mixture well, add back to the pot, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
7. Add the cream and lemon juice to the cheese mixture and mix well.
8. Put the cheese mixture in the cake ring, ensuring the cheese mixture does not cover the top of the top of the sweet paste.
9. Bake for ~30 minutes. Sweet pastry should be a golden brown colour, and the top will look like baked cheese.

*I actually had enough filling to make a baby cheesecake (4″) as well

For more tips, check out the original post on Camembert cheesecake here.