Lemon cheesecake with physalis and jelly topping

Yesterday I made a very nice cheesecake that I thought I should share with the world. Well, the recipe that is. The cake disappeared as by magic.

I started with this excellent recipe: Helt Vilt – Ostekake . It’s in Norwegian so if you’re not a native try Google translate.

The first thing I changed was the order in which I made the layers. I started with the bottom and worked my way up. ‘Why?’ you ask? Because I only have those springform cakepans. The thing with those is that they are 100% unable to hold liquid inside. So if you follow the recipe and pour the jelly in the bottom (to make the top) then you will have some cleaning to do pretty soon.

So start from the bottom if you have a springform. I blended the biscuits and poured the melted butter in and put it in the fridge. Let it sit there until cool and firm.

Make the cheese filling and pour over. Smooth out with a spatula or other similar tool. I have discovered that when working with semi-solids like this cheese filling you would do much like you do with concrete to make it smooth. Apply gentle strokes and vibrations and the filling (or concrete) will do the rest of the job for you, suddenly transforming into a nice smooth surface. Pop it in the fridge again until firm. I let it sit there for a couple of hours. Remember, you should rather leave it in too long than too short.

When I took it out of the fridge came my second alteration of the recipe. I made 1.5mm thick slices of Physalis and made a layer that covered the cheese filling. Only one slice thick though. Don’t bother laying it out in a fancy pattern like I did. You’ll just (like I did) discover that the darn things float pretty darn well. Oh and one more thing: do not apply jelly until the liquid is maximum at room temperature!

If you do indeed want a fancy pattern then first apply a very thin layer of jelly on top of the cheese filling before you add the physalis slices. This only works if the cheese filling is smooth and level AND the surface on which the cake is resting is level. When I say thin I mean about 1/3 of the thickness of the slices. Wait a couple of minutes and gently place the physalis slices into the jelly however you want. Let it sit in the fridge for a couple of minutes until it’s become more solid. You can then take it out from the fridge and apply however much jelly you want without the darn things floating up.

Pop the whole thing into the fridge again and let it sit until the jelly is all solid. And again; you should rather wait too long that too short. Cover it with something and let it sit over night for example. Why cover it? That’s because you do not want the other things you have in your fridge to “contaminate” your treat with the wrong scents.

So that’s it. One delicious cake all done. Sorry for not posting any pictures. It got eaten too quickly. I’ll try to be quicker the next time around.