Apple Cider Cheesecake Bars
The cider gets boiled down to a syrup first. That step is the difference between apple-flavoured and apple.
Cider straight from the bottle is mostly water, and stirring it into a cheesecake batter gives you a wet batter and a faint taste. Reduced to a quarter of its volume it becomes intense enough to matter.
It is worth doing the reduction the day before. It keeps in the fridge for a week and it makes the actual baking a twenty-minute job.
Ingredients
| Amount | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 2 cups | apple cider, for reducing |
| 1 1/2 cups | digestive or graham crumbs |
| 6 tbsp | butter, melted |
| 16 oz | cream cheese, at room temperature |
| 1/2 cup | sugar |
| 2 | eggs |
| 1 tsp | ground cinnamon |
| 1 pinch | salt |
Method
- Boil the cider in a wide pan until it reduces to about half a cup and coats a spoon. Fifteen to twenty minutes. Cool it completely.
- Oven to 325°F / 165°C. Line an 8-inch square tin with paper, leaving an overhang.
- Mix the crumbs with the melted butter, press firmly into the tin, and bake ten minutes. Firmly — a loose base crumbles when you cut it.
- Beat the cream cheese and sugar smooth, then the eggs one at a time, then the cooled cider syrup, cinnamon and salt. Stop as soon as it is combined; beating in air causes cracks.
- Pour over the base and bake 30 to 35 minutes, until the edges are set and the centre still moves as one piece.
- Cool at room temperature, then chill at least four hours before lifting out and cutting.
Notes
- Room-temperature cream cheese or you get lumps that never come out.
- The overhang of paper is how the whole slab comes out in one piece.
- A hot dry knife, wiped between cuts, is the difference between bars and rubble.
Questions
Can I use apple juice?
You can reduce it the same way, but it is sweeter and less interesting. Add a squeeze of lemon to the syrup.
It cracked.
Overbaked, or overbeaten. Take it out while the middle still wobbles; it sets in the fridge.