Canarian · Dessert · From the menu Travesía
Flor de Guía cheesecake, fig, honey
Queso de Guía, higo, miel
A burnt cheesecake built on queso de Flor de Guía, the sheep's cheese curdled with cardoon flower that only comes from the north of this island. Figs roasted alongside, honey at the end.
One thing I have to be straight about. Nobody has published this cheese baked at burnt-cheesecake heat. The only Flor de Guía dessert in print, written for the island's own tourist board, takes it the other way entirely: a bain-marie at 90 degrees for two hours. A cardoon-curdled sheep cheese behaves differently from cream cheese, and the aged-cheese cheesecakes that exist bake lower and turn markedly denser. So cut the Flor de Guía with cream cheese as below, and make it once before you put it in front of anyone.
Ingredients
- 350 g queso de Flor de Guía, tierno or semicurado, rind off
- 400 g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
- 275 g caster sugar
- 5 eggs
- 375 ml double cream, 35% fat
- 20 g plain flour
- A pinch of salt
- 8 ripe figs
- 2 tbsp honey, plus more to serve
- A thread of olive oil
Method
- Heat the oven to 210 °C. Line a 22 cm springform tin with two crossed sheets of baking paper, crumpled first, standing well above the rim.
- Grate or crumble the Flor de Guía and beat it with the cream cheese and sugar until there is not a lump left. This takes longer than you think.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating only enough to combine each. Do not whip air into it.
- Fold in the cream, then the flour and salt, sieved over. The flour is not optional: every published version uses it.
- Pour into the tin and bake 40 minutes. The top should be deeply browned, almost burnt at the edges, and the centre should still wobble freely when you shake the tin.
- Turn the oven off, open the door a crack, and leave the cake in it for four to five hours. It will sink in the middle. That is correct and it is what sets the texture.
- Halve the figs, sit them cut side up in a small tray with the honey and a thread of olive oil, and roast 10 minutes at 200 °C until they slump and the juices catch.
- Serve at room temperature, never fridge-cold, with the warm figs and their syrup.
Serve it with. A small glass of malvasía, sweet and cold.