Cooking at home on Valentine’s Day is a lovely opportunity to skip the crowds, the restaurant floors with identical two-seaters as far as the eye can see, and the half-hearted and overpriced prix fixe Valentine’s Day menus. Stay in, cook together, and watch an old movie with a silly amount of transatlantic accents. And definitely enjoy this biscoff cheesecake with sumac strawberries. It’s sweet, tangy, and creamy, and leftovers keep wonderfully for days.
When I think of Valentine’s Day dessert, I always think strawberries, even though they’re woefully out of season in the US. So I usually end up finding a way to incorporate them while doing something extra to emphasize their flavor. The sumac in this recipe gives the strawberries a bit of extra berry flavor and tartness. So even if you’re working with sad February berries, you’ll be bringing out the best in them. Think strawberry rhubarb flavor in the middle of winter. Feel free to skip the sumac if you don’t have it around (or if your berries are perfect as is).
You can also totally use frozen berries for the puréed glaze, which will add some peak-strawberry flavor to the whole cake. Frozen berries’ texture isn’t ideal for enjoying whole, but they are much more flavorful than fresh ones out of season. Plus, they work great in any puréed applications. You can use leftover frozen berries + chocolate milk to make smoothies next Saturday morning. Maybe even blend in a piece of leftover biscoff cheesecake if you’re feeling it.
biscoff cheesecake with sumac strawberries
loosely adapted from this King Arthur Flour Recipe
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours
- Yield: 8 standard or 12 small pieces
Ingredients
for the cheesecake:
- 24 Biscoff Lotus cookies (185g)*
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted (55g), plus more for coating the pan
- 1 tablespoons sugar (15g)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt (1g)
- 2 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 2 large eggs (110g)
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar (135g)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt (1.5g)
- 16 oz small strawberries (455g)**
for the glaze:
- 8oz medium strawberries (227g)
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch (10g)
- 1/2 cup sugar (100g)
- 2 tablespoons sumac (10g)
Instructions
- For the cheesecake: Preheat the oven to 350° F convection (177° C).
- Finely grind the cookies in a food processor.
- Add the melted butter, sugar, and salt, and process until everything is well-blended.
- Lightly coat the sides of an 8 or 9-inch cheesecake round with oil or butter. Place the crumbly crust in the cheesecake round, and press it down into 1 even layer. Use a glass, measuring cup, or something else that has a flat bottom to press it compactly.
- Place the cheesecake round on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Let it cool a little while you work on the filling, and leave the oven on.
- Whisk the cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and salt together until completely smooth (whisk slowly so you don’t incorporate too much air).
- Pour the filling into the crust.
- Bake for about 30 minutes, until it’s just a little jiggly in the very center. Remove from the oven and let it cool to room temperature, then let it chill for at least 3 hours until it’s completely cold.
- Once it’s chilled, remove from the pan and place on a serving tray.
- Cut the tops off the strawberries, and then place them cut-side-down on the cheesecake.
- For the glaze: Hull the 8 oz of strawberries and place them with the cornstarch, sugar, and sumac in a small saucepan, and use an immersion blender to process until smooth (or use a food processor).
- Bring the puree to a simmer over medium-high heat. Simmer for about 1-2 minutes until the cornstarch activates and it thickens. Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh sieve. Once you’re ready to use it, add a few drops of water and rewarm in the microwave until it’s a brushable consistency.
- Brush the strawberries generously with the glaze.
Notes
* Feel free to instead use graham crackers. Just use 1 tablespoon more butter with them.
** If you don’t have small strawberries, no worries—hull and slice them, and fan them out in a pretty design on the surface instead.
To store and make ahead: This keeps super well in the fridge. If you’re making it for guests, you can make it about 12-24 hours ahead of time and chill it (you might want to brush it with the glaze at the last moment, so it doesn’t get messed up from cling wrap). After a day or so, the strawberries will start weeping a little, but the leftovers are still amazing. If you want to store it longer, it freezes beautifully. I like to individually wrap them in plastic wrap, and then freeze. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight.
This is such a great recipe, not a single word out of place. My cheesecake turned out perfectly and the tip about not mixing in too much air has solved my lifelong pattern of cheesecakes that crack on the top! The glaze turned out pretty gluggy and I am guessing my tablespoon of cornstarch was too much, or I cooked it for too long. I am tempted to try again but cook the glaze more like a jam and add pomegranate molasses, since the sumac available in Australia is pretty dull-flavoured (my Kurdish friend describes it as ‘like dirt’). Once again, thank you Kathryn for such a lovely recipe.
aw yay I am so glad you enjoyed it! Definitely less cornstarch will help with that problem next time (it is a bit temperamental because more acidity tends to make starches less able to thicken, and you never really know how acidic your berries or sumac will be!)—if it happens again, feel free to thin it out with a little lemon juice (maybe like a tsp at a time?). Should do the trick!
I made this cheesecake last month and it was delicious! The cheesecake is light and the crust with the Biscoff biscuits is way better than graham crackers. I had no problem with anything sticking to the pan. (I did generously butter the springform pan.) To please everyone, I served both sliced strawberries and the sumac glaze on the side. Those that were hesitant about the sumac glaze ended up loving the combination of flavors. My son’s birthday is tomorrow and he has requested I make this. Thank you for another wonderful recipe!
Oh that’s so wonderful!! I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it, and I hope your son has a very happy bday tomorrow! <3
I’ve made this, in European winter. 🙂 Normally, I would not buy sad winter strawberries or frozen strawberries but I did- for Valentine’s day. 😉 And because the recipe sounded great. It’s a great recipe and the flavours are beautiful. The crust horribly stuck to the tin though, although I did grease it properly. Maybe I took the "press it down compactly" too serious? Next time, I will put parchment paper underneath; the crust really was completely stuck. Or maybe it was the cookies I used? I used very buttery ones because I couldn’t find Graham crackers.
Also- I felt the glaze took the glamour away from the strawberries a little- they looked a little dull rather than red and shiny after I had generously applied the glaze.
And oh- the cheesecake split- but maybe that was because I put the cake on the window sill to speed up the cooling and it didn’t like the change in temperature? Hope this is helpful- I prefer cooking, so I am sure I did a lot of things wrong also; so precise.
Ooh cheesecake is soooo notorious for technical difficulties—it’s not just you haha. This recipe always comes out perfectly for me, but definitely takes a bit of practice. Did you use a cheesecake tin/springform one (one with a removable bottom)? That really helps with the sticking problem. Parchment is another help with making sure it doesn’t stick (I usually just use a cheesecake tin instead of using a parchment round with a regular cake pan, but the alternative works really well in a pinch, if you don’t have the right kind of pan). Funny about the glaze, because they had the opposite effect on the strawberries I was using haha. I wonder if adding another teaspoon of water or so would help. Oh and re. cheesecake splitting, sometimes it’s just the pan’s fault (all pans conduct heat differently), and sometimes it’s because it got overcooked a smidge (which is very hard to get an eye for… again, takes a lot of practice). You want to remove it from the oven when it’s still got a little jiggle in the center, otherwise it’ll split as it cools. Pulling it out too early would be its own kind of disaster, so I totally get wanting to be safe, but you can experiment with pulling it out a minute or two earlier each time you bake one, and paying attention to how much the middle jiggles each time. You’ll totally get an eye for it eventually… and will enjoy so much good cheesecake in the meantime 😉 Hope that all helps a bit!
This dessert is so incredibly stunning. And I’m certain, it’s equally as delicious. 🙂
Aw thank you! It’s one of my favorites 🙂