Need a quick and elegant appetizer? Want to showcase some nice cheese?
This Savory Blue Cheese Cheesecake is your recipe!
This recipe is open to a lot of variation, too—chopped chiles, red peppers, caramelized onions and on and on. For variation, you could sub in goat cheese for all or part of the blue cheese. You can serve this with crackers or thin slices of an artisanal bread, although the crunchy Panko crust can carry the appetizer dish by itself. This would be wonderful with a glass of rose and some beautiful sliced Bosc pears.
Don’t let this cheesecake’s small size fool you. This is one very rich dessert. Your guests will only need a small slice to unleash the cheesecake’s wonderful flavors.
This recipe is adapted from one that appeared here. The original recipe featured Mirassou Wines and appeared on wonderful The Hungry Couple NYC site.
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.
Savory Blue Cheese Cheesecake
Ingredients
- For the crust:
- 1/3 C. unseasoned Panko breadcrumbs
- 1/4 C. walnuts (chopped fine but not to the point of being oily)
- 2 T. unsalted butter (melted)
- For The Filling:
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- 2-4 oz. blue cheese
- 1/4 C. sour cream
- 2 T. chopped chives
- 2 T. chopped green chiles
- 1 egg (beaten)
- 1 t. lemon juice
- Pinch of black pepper
- For Topping:
- 1/2 C. walnut pieces (or pecans)
- 1 T. honey
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a small springform pan by spraying it with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Step 2 Put the unseasoned Panko breadcrumbs, walnuts and melted butter into the bowl of your food processor. Process until mixed and the walnuts are chopped fine. Press this mixture into your prepared springform pan. Set aside.
- Step 3 Combine the cream cheese, blue cheese (use 2 to 4 oz. of blue cheese depending upon your taste), sour cream, egg, lemon juice and black pepper in the bowl of your food processor and process to combine until you have a smooth mixture. Add in the chopped chives and green chiles and process briefly to incorporate into the cheese mixture. Spoon this mixture into our prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cheesecake cool. I covered my cheesecake and refrigerated it overnight.
- Step 4 When you are ready to serve, combine the walnuts and honey and roast them briefly in the oven at about 400 degrees F. for 5 minutes. (Use a tray for this step and either a Silpat or a sheet of parchment.) Remove from the oven and cool. Once cool, use the nut mixture and some of the baked Panko crumbs that have fallen off the cake to decorate the top of the cheesecake.
