A vanilla cheesecake makes an excellent canvas for all sorts of flavours and toppings - chocolate ganache, salty caramel sauce or lemon curd would be great as toppings for this rich, silky, tall cheesecake. But I think fruit is particularly good with cheesecake, especially fruit that’s a little on the tart side to cut through the rich, creamy density of cheesecake. In this case, I use a jar of sour cherries (like these ones), which I love because they aren’t too sweet and they are in a very light syrup, which helps them keep Summery, fresh tartness that often gets cooked out of preserved fruit. They also look very dramatic and pretty piled up on top of a tall cheesecake, along with their almost glowing ruby-red syrup. I think cheesecake ought to have a generous amount of buttery crumb crust; this one stretches a good way up the sides of the pan.
To make the sour cherry topping, I concentrated the syrup down slightly, just enough to make it into a slightly thicker sauce and I added a little lemon juice to keep things just a bit sour. The result is a sweet-tart cherry sauce that glows red against the rich, creamy cheesecake. You can easily experiment with a bit more sugar or a bit more lemon to find your ideal spot on the sweet-tart spectrum.
Note: If it’s the right season and you are lucky enough to have fresh sour cherries available (and you are ready to stain your fingers a lovely shade of red pitting them), this recipe will work well with fresh cherries as well. Cook pitted fresh sour cherries in 1 part water to ½ part sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat until the cherries are just softened. Strain the cherries out and set aside. Cook the syrup until thickened slightly, and add a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. Combine syrup with cherries and use to top cheesecake.
sour cherry cheesecake
adapted from Martha Stewart
crumb crust
6 tbs butter, melted
1 ¾ cups graham crumbs (or 12 graham crackers blitzed into crumbs)
¼ cup sugar
Heat oven to 375° F. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Press crumbs evenly into the bottom of a 9” springform pan, pressing the mixture up the sides of the pan about 1 ½ inches. Bake around 15 minutes, or until crust is fragrant. Set aside to cool.
filling
2 ½ pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tbs vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
Reduce oven temperature to 325° F. Boil a kettle of water.
To make the filling, beat the cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until soft and fluffy. Add sugar slowly while beating on low speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add in vanilla and salt and beat briefly to combine. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure to scrape the bowl after each addition. Beat in the sour cream; scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is evenly combined.
Wrap the bottom of the springform pan with one large piece of tinfoil to seal it from leaks from the water bath. Place the pan in a large roasting pan and place on the centre rack of the oven. Pour in the filling over the prepared crust and then pour boiled water into the roasting pan, taking care to fill it just below the level of the tinfoil barrier. Bake until the cake is set with a slight wobble in the centre, about 1 ¾ hours. Take the pan out of the water bath and cool for about a half hour. Run a thin paring knife around the edge of the cake to help it come away from the pan. Chill the cake for 3-4 hours or overnight to fully set.
Top with cherry topping to serve.
sour cherry topping
1 jar sour cherries in light syrup
2 tbs lemon juice
2-4 tbs sugar
Strain the cherries, reserving the syrup. In a small saucepan, bring the syrup, lemon juice and two tablespoons of sugar to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer until the syrup is slightly thickened. If the syrup is particularly reluctant to become thick you can add a little more sugar. Recombine the thickened syrup with the cherries. Chill the cherry topping in the fridge until ready to use. The topping can be made 1-2 days in advance and refrigerated in an airtight container.
Gluten free adaptation: It’s easy to make a gluten-free version of this cake - swap out the graham crumbs for any gluten free cookies (shortbread or any digestive style biscuits would work well). Otherwise just follow the recipe as written.