Cheesecake with Tomato Jam by Max & Otto

There is nothing I love more than a good cheesecake: the soft, fluffy, fresh cheese layer mixed with the cookie crust makes for a real explosion of tastes and textures. Every cheesecake is different depending on the ingredients, the mixing methods used and the toppings and Felix Wessler from Max & Otto really created the Queen of all Cheesecakes.

Felix was so kind to give us the recipe of his famous cheesecake but if you are too lazy to make it you can also pass by Max & Otto and taste it there or buy one from their take-away jars.

This cheesecake is very special not only because of the Tomato Jam topping (who would have thought Tomatoes taste so delicious in a dessert) but also because of the 3 cookie layer (Cereal Cookies, Butter Cookies and Oat Cookies all mixed together) and the cooking procedure (creating steam instead of just putting it into the oven).

Prep Time: 25 Min

Cooking Time: 60 Minutes + 6 Hours Cooling

Ingredients for the Crust:

• Butter - 110 g

• Cereal Cookies - 84 g - similar to these

• Butterkeks - 67 g - like these or Digestives

• Oat Cookes - 67 g - like these

Ingredients for the the Top Layer:

• Cream Cheese - 450 g

• Sugar - 300 g

• Cornstarch - 15 g

• Vanilla Extract - 1/2 teaspoon

• Egg - 1

• Heavy Cream - 175 g

Ingredients for the Tomato Jam:

• Ripe tomatoes - 1 Kg

• Preserving sugar or Brown sugar - 1 Kg

• Lemon juice - 1 Lemon

• Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon

How to:

1. We will start by pre-heating the oven to 180°C.

2. Grease the springform pan and wrap it crosswise with aluminum foil.

3. For the base, put the biscuits in a food processor, grind them finely and mix with the butter and salt.

4. Put the cookie mixture in the springform pan and press firmly, chill.

5. For the filling, beat 300g cream cheese with 100g sugar, vanilla extract and starch for about 3 minutes.

6. Add the rest of the cream cheese and sugar one after the other and stir until creamy.

7. Add the eggs one by one and stir until creamy too. Now stir in the cream.

8. Fill the drip pan with water. Fill the cheesecake mixture into the springform pan and place the springform pan into the drip pan. You are creating a bain-marie in the oven, if want the springform to be surrounded by water in order to create steam.

9. Bake in the hot oven on the lowest rack for about 60 minutes, until the dough hardly wobbles when you gently shake the mold.

10. Take the cake out of the oven, remove the aluminum foil and leave to cool on a wire rack for 2 hours.

11. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.

How to Tomato Jam:

1. Skin the tomatoes and cut out the stem. Cook everything together and puree lightly. Then put in jars and sterilise.

You can add the tomato jam to the cheesecake once the cooling period of 6 hours has passed - you can also use it for other dishes or simply on bread.