Our baker J’s new menu is up: Walnut Chocolate Basque Cheesecake! This menu features crunchy and flavourful toasted walnuts and deep and rich dark chocolate flavours inspired by the famous Ferrero Roche chocolates. Please try it at Wicked Cafe at West Point Gray (3605 W 16th Avenue, Vancouver)! His last project, the Fruit Crumbles, was a crumbling flop (I will be honest here) and will be discontinued, as I wrote last time. Will J’s new menu be successful? You should try to find out!
J may be a terrible baker, but he is a food lover. Unfortunately for him, his techniques do not follow his passion for food. Sometimes, I talk with J about food and related stories, and I thought some of them were good enough to share here on the blog.
Among many different types of cheesecakes, Basque is a unique one. After mixing a few simple ingredients, you intentionally burn the top in a high-temperature oven. It may seem odd if you look at a slice of Basque for the first time. After all, it is true that its top seems (and is) burnt, and the interior almost-liquidy soft, making people feel that someone cooked it unevenly. Astonishingly, these are all intended and are the very things that make this cake magical. Dense and flavourful, the brûléed top covers the almost liquidy, smooth, yet deeply-rich and creamy inner parts.
In the beginning, J told me he did not understand such features, and it took days for him to find out what he should seek. And the following are some of what he shared with me.
Basque is a region in Europe, lying across the border between Spain and France, on the Atlantic side of the Pyrenees. The land is famous for its distinctive language and culture from its neighbours, as it was almost untouched by the Roman- or Latinization that took place in the ancient days. Decades ago, the region was frequently in the headlines with its attempts to gain independence from Spain and France, even by force if necessary.
Anyways, with such a context, Basque Cheesecake may seem like an ancient and traditional cuisine which the region maintained as a part of their precious heritage for ages–but that would be misleading. In fact, Basque Cheesecake is a relatively recent creation, only dating back to the 1990s from a local restaurant. It is by no means traditional but contemporary.
Like many other dishes, the recipes for Basque Cheesecake are flooding search engines. Although there are slight variations in volumes or ratios, the ingredients and methods are more or less the same. J said that it seems so due to the simplicity of the original recipe or the impactful cooking method. Thanks to that, Basque Cheesecake is visible globally, whether it is from a home baker or a professional pastry chef from diverse bakers–it is simple and easy to give a twist. After all, you can see many home bakers showing off their skills on the internet with a product that seems no different from the ones from the top chefs!
J’s first Walnut Basque was overcooked and crumbly inside, and the cheese was not mixed well with the other ingredients. But after studying, his Basque turned out much better: burnt on the outside (intentionally, this time) and soft and almost liquidy (as intended) inside. His last version was (actually) good, with rich flavour from dark chocolate and crunchy and toasty walnuts. Wicked Cafe decided to sell the final version! Of course, adding chocolate and walnut may seem like a slight change–but their presence makes it really different from the original version (which you can also try at our cafe!).
It was just another time talking with J about the history of food and everything. But there are other stories he told me about other things as well. I want to post some of the stories he told me about various things in the future!
Anyways, please give J’s newest challenge a try!