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Bidmead in Berlin (again) – German Cheesecake recipe

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BidmeadBites visited Berlin back in 2015 and ate a bit of everything; from the classic Currywurst to Peruvian ceviche. Revisiting recently with my mum and sister, food highlights included some terrific Taiwanese dishes at Lon Men’s Noodle House and traditional frikadellen (meatball-esque German beef patties) back at Markthalle Neun, the cities funnest food market. But what I want to focus on in this post is cake. Oh, do the Germans know a bit about cake.

Cheesecake, to be specific.

German cheesecakes have a soft shortcrust pastry base and a filling which replaces the cream cheese used in typical New York cheesecakes with quark,  a sort of strained cottage cheese which is then mixed in with butter, sugar and whipped egg white. Below are three different slices I tried, with a pastry base/a pastry base and crust/filled with gooseberries. All in the name of recipe research…

Cheesecake no. 1: @ Oliv Caf, Mitte

Cheesecake no. 2: @ Markthalle Neun, Kreuzberg

Cheesecake no. 3: Gooseberry filled at KaDaWe Foodhall

Looking to recreate this recipe at home, I took inspiration from a cheesecake recipe in a wonderfully old retro cookbook named “The Sainsburys Book of Puddings & Desserts” (published in 1980, and still one of my favourite baking books). The use of semolina and ground almonds adds richness to the quark, which is often sold in a very low-fat version. While the traditional pastry bottom in the German cheesecake is definitely a welcome addition, the labour intensive descriptions of handling this dough are less appealing. I anglicised the German recipe to include a traditional digestive base, because biscuits mixed with truck loads of butter is never a bad thing.

Find my tweaked German (ish) recipe below! I slightly overcooked mine, so I recommend keeping a beady eye of for the browning of your cake on the top. Once cooked, do try to wait until it’s fully chilled to eat – the wait is worth it I promise.

Retro German/English cheesecake

Use a 9 inch (23 cm) cake tin.

For biscuit base:

  • 200 grams digestive biscuits
  • 100 grams butter

For cake:

  • 100 grams butter
  • 150 grams caster sugar
  • Grated rind and juice of one lemon
  • 400 grams quark
  • 3 eggs, seperated
  • 75 grams ground almonds
  • 50 grams semolina (if you don’t have this to hand, you can just sub in the same amount of ground almonds)

Method

Before you start….Preheat open to 180 degrees. Line cake tin.

  1. Firstly make your base. Either put biscuits in a big sandwich bag and bash with a rolling pin until you have fine crumbs, or put in a food processor to crush them up. Melt butter completely and mix in with biscuits, then press biscuits into base of tin until you have a nice compact biscuit base. Pop into warm oven for 10 minutes to cook, then remove.
  2. Now for the filling. Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind together until light and fluffy. Beat in quark gradually, then mix in the egg yolks and beat thoroughly. Add the almonds, semolina and lemon juice and mix well. Whisk the eggs whites until stiff and carefully fold into the cheese mixture.
  3. Spoon into your lined cake line and bake for 50-60 minutes. Turn off oven and leave until cold (if you can manage to wait!).

An English/German lovechild take on the cheesecake

From Peru to Thailand in just one night – Berlin’s Thursday Night Food Market

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German food is not really something I’d ever eat at home, so while in Berlin it made sense to sample some traditional cuisine. Clearly a country with excellent taste, the Germans seem to share my fondness for offal, with calf’s livers and pig’s kidneys featuring on many traditional menus, along with some absolutely incredible mashed potatoes and an awful lot of cabbage. This food is really quite delicious but not something I, or indeed many people could eat every day. Just as well, then, that Berlin is absolutely heaving with different cuisines from all over the world…even better that many of them are conveniently packed into the glorious Thursday Night Food Market.

The creators of this Thursday evening market describe it as ‘edible proof that Berlin is a center of culinary creativity, a melting pot whose diversity is visible in its multitude of authentic food cultures’. With an eclectic mix of cuisines from all over the world including vegan Egyptian food, Brazilian tapioca pancakes, as well as tempting French sweet treats and some brilliant looking Belgium waffles, I would have to agree! Held in the market hall on Eisenbahnstraße in Kreuzberg, this event runs every Thursday from 5pm-11pm.

My mum and I ensured we arrived hungry so as to be able to sample a little bit of everything (you have to have a game plan with these sorts of things, you know). Not quite knowing where to begin, our eyes were drawn to this Peruvian pop-up, Chicha. Offering ceviches of salmon and corvina, a white fish found frequently in South America, this fresh fish dish was just calling out as the perfect starter to a lot of food ahead.

Sweet and soft chunks of cooked yam combined with salty, crunchy popped corn as the perfect accompaniment for the fresh raw salmon. Bathed in lime juice and scattered with red onions and coriander, the salmon ceviche we ordered was a party of flavors in a plastic bowl. Brilliantly balanced, each element of the dish perfectly complemented the other. Tragically, they couldn’t actually offer any Pisco (a dangerously drinkable grape brandy produced in Chile and Peru) as they hadn’t got their license. We survived all the same, and despite wanting to sample some more of this incredible ceviche, we saved room for what was ahead.

Salmon ceviche

Initially, it was our desire for an alcoholic drink which led us to a French champagne and oyster bar, where we ordered two (rather large) glasses of rosé wine. Seeing everyone around us slurp on their oysters made us think we should probably order a couple – I’d never tried them either, and was keen to see what they’d be like. I picked the oyster away from the shell, squeezed over some lemon and was ready to be blown away. Oysters are like, dead fancy and expensive right? Therefore, they must be delicious. I’m not sure if it was just a particularly underwhelming type of oyster, but I was left rather indifferent to this slimy shellfish. Still glad to have tried it anyway, at least the rosé went down a treat. Oysters slurped and wine swallowed, it was onto the next foodie station.

Food trends are funny. One minute we’re all going mad for pulled pork, the next it’s crazy pastry hybrids (hello, cronut)…what is it that makes one particular cuisine or dish so sought after? Without a doubt, the latest food trend to hit us in a huge way is Gua Bao, steamed Taiwanese buns. The mixture of the perfectly plump steamed buns, slow cooked pork belly, pickled greens and fresh coriander, topped with sugary ground peanuts is pretty damn delicious and means that this dish has more than earned its trendy foodie points. Berlin being as on-trend as any city I’ve ever visited before, I was unsurprised to see a Gua Bao stand at the Thursday Night Market – and equally unsurprised to see it had the longest line of any of the stands.

Some things are worth queuing for, though. My mum suggested just sharing one steamed bun between us. She clearly hadn’t tried this Taiwanese treat before – I assured her she’d be wanting her own. The pulled chicken filling looked good, but as I said to my mum, it’s just not pork belly is it? Barely stopping to take a photo, I ate this Gua Bao in a state of bliss. The fluffy steamed bun is a dream vehicle for all the goodness it contains inside, and with the sprinkle of chilli on top, it had a slight kick to tie in all the flavors together.

Finally feeling like we could be full, I explained to my mum that this was only in the savory stomach compartment, and, in fact, there’s always at least 10% room left for sweet. Intrigued by my solid scientific theory, we headed onto desert. My mum opted for a mini cheesecake from the beautiful selection at the French patisserie while I chose a couple of scoops of gelato from the ice-cream stand next door. So good were these deserts, we had consumed them before I had even remembered to take any photos. Must have been the summer heat and one too many glasses of delicious German Riesling wine.

Leaving the Thursday Night Market, I was very pleased with Berlin’s foodie fare so far. And the best bit? There’s still more to come! Stay posted for the final installment from BidmeadBites in Berlin, where I sample some very odd savory macaroons and revel in the best food hall ever.

Bidmead in Berlin – cocktails, surprise foodie finds and a bit of curried sausage

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Despite the appalling British weather (does this even classify as summer?), my return from Colombia has been a happy one. Although I was sad to leave the country I came to love and call home, being back in my true home London has reminded me of all the great things this city has to offer. But hardly back three weeks and I was lucky enough to travel away again, to the slightly less exotic, but no less exciting German capital of Berlin.

I had never been to Berlin before and had genuinely grown almost tired of hearing everyone else and their aunt rave about how wonderful it was. So my mum and I booked a six-day trip to explore the city and see what all the hype was about.

It seems everyone had good reason to praise Berlin – what an incredible city! Kicking off our holiday in style, it was time for some cocktails. We headed to the classic old-fashioned bar at the Kempinski hotel, in the district of Charlottenburg to quench our thirst. The bar was impressively stocked – and if this wasn’t enough, there was an equally impressive drinks trolley with just about every liquor under the sun.

I’ve definitely taken after my mum in a fair few traits, and my taste in alcohol is one of them. Despite being swayed by the extensive cocktail menu, sometimes you just can’t beat a classic. We both went for Negronis. A mildly potent mix, this cocktail is made up of equal quantities of gin, red vermouth and Campari. Who needs non-alcoholic mixers in their cocktails anyway? A Negroni is a classic apéritif, or pre-dinner drink, which is unsurprising – too many of these on an empty stomach would not end well.

So onto dinner it was as we headed into the trendy area of Kreuzberg, which seemed to be the hipster hangout of the city – a German Shoreditch if you will. There was such a wealth of great looking places to eat and drink, it was hard to know where to head! After yet another cocktail at a very cool bar, we eventually headed into Knofi.

A mix of Turkish, Persian and Moroccan cuisine, this is a great little spot where you choose from a salad bar and are served by staff, who then weigh your plate.
Mainly vegetarian, Knofi offered up more dips than I knew could even exist, along with the popular German cheese quark in many exciting flavors. Quark is somewhat similar to the Arabic labneh, strained yogurt which has a tangy, sour taste. Among the other options were many grain salads, with quinoa, couscous, bulgar wheat…all the grains you could think of.

We went for a large plate to share, and while not entirely sure what we were choosing (turns out all those years of Spanish did not help me with my German – funny that), everything on our plate was fantastic. From the top-notch classic hummus to the sweet-potato garlic dip next to it, one serving almost wasn’t enough! Other tasty treats on our plate included the lentil balls as seen in the middle and the cracking coriander and grain salad. All this, with two glasses of wine and bottles of water came to a grand total of €14! A bargain if you ask me.

Always eager to sample local cuisine, it was only natural that I try the famous German ‘delicacy’, the Currywurst. The slightly odd pairing of a German Bratwurst sausage combined with curry ketchup and then doused with a light sprinkling of curry powder on top, the Currywurst is the definitive dish in German street food. Invented by a woman called Herta Heuwer in 1949, this sausage and curry combo has been much loved since its birth. Whether I loved it could be questioned, but I certainly didn’t hate it. Although…trying it just once was plenty, as there was so much more food to be eaten!

Stay posted for the next installments of my Berlin trip. An absolutely sensational food market as well as what categorically classifies as ‘foodie heaven’ at Berlin’s swankiest department store, BidmeadBites certainly got its fill while in Berlin!