Biscoff Cheesecake

Biscoff cookies are a favorite of many around the world, and this Biscoff cheesecake is a wonderful way to incorporate both the cookies and creamy Biscoff spread into another favorite dessert. “Biscoff” is a portmanteau of biscuit and coffee, and it’s used as the English name for Lotus-brand speculoos cookies, a Belgian version of Dutch speculaas cookies.

Speculaas cookies contain a mix of spices known as speculaas, which comprise at least cinnamon, ginger and cloves, along with a few other spices that can vary. But because spices were expensive when the cookies were first made in the 1600s, especially in Belgium, not everyone could afford to make these cookies. Enterprising bakers in Belgium came up with a version that used fewer spices (usually just cinnamon) and called them speculoos cookies. The -loos portion refers to there being less in the way of spices.

Both speculaas and speculoos cookies were made in various shapes, including windmills. If you remember eating “windmill cookies” as a kid, they were probably speculoos cookies. However, you’ll often hear the names used interchangeably, so always double-check what spices the cookies contain to ensure you’re buying the ones you really want.

This luscious, warmly flavored dessert uses Biscoff/speculoos cookies and cookie spread. The recipe does require a few steps to put together, but they’re each easy enough, and this is a very nice cheesecake to serve at family gatherings.

Biscoff Cheesecake Ingredients

Crust:

• Biscoff cookies: You’ll crush a whole 8.8-ounce package of cookies to make the crust for this cheesecake.
• Butter: The crust itself is a typical cookie crust, so you’ll mix the cookies with melted butter to form a moist but crumbly dough that you can pat down into the pan.

Filling:

• Cream cheese: You’ll want to use blocks of cream cheese, not the whipped spreads you often find sitting in the same section at the store.
• Sugar: Sugar obviously sweetens the filling, but it also helps make the cream cheese lighter in texture.
• Biscoff creamy cookie spread: This cheesecake isn’t called Biscoff for nothing—adding the cookie spread to the filling ensures you taste the Biscoff flavor in every single bite.
• Sour cream: This is another softening ingredient, but it also counters all the sweetness and helps round out the flavor of the cream cheese.
• Vanilla extract: Vanilla extract can both give extra vanilla flavor and emphasize the main flavor already present in this Biscoff cheesecake recipe. The vanilla doesn’t outshine the Biscoff flavor but instead gives it a nice, warm note.
• Eggs: The room-temperature eggs help the filling solidify, or coagulate, during cooking.

Topping:

• Biscoff creamy cookie spread: Like peanut butter, cookie butter spread will thin out and become runny when heated. That makes it easy to spread over the chilled and solidified cheesecake surface.
• Biscoff cookies (optional): These are not a recipe necessity, but you can add more crushed cookies for decoration.

Directions

Step 1: Parbake the crust

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Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place a greased 9-inch springform pan on a double thickness of heavy-duty foil (about 18 inches square). Wrap the foil securely around the pan, then place the pan on a baking sheet and set it aside. In a small bowl, combine the crushed Biscoff cookies with the melted butter. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom and about 1 inch up the sides of the springform pan. Bake the crust for 8 to 10 minutes or until it’s lightly browned. Let the crust cool on a wire rack till it reaches room temperature.

Step 2: Make the filling

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In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese on medium speed until it’s smooth, four to five minutes. Beat in the sugar, cookie spread, sour cream, salt and vanilla until smooth, two to three minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating on low speed until they’re just blended. Pour the cheesecake filling into the cooled crust.

Step 3: Bake the cheesecake

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Place the springform pan inside a larger baking pan, and add 1 inch of hot water to the larger pan. (The water should not be higher than the edges of the foil on the springform pan.) Bake the cheesecake until the center is just set and the top appears dull, 50 to 55 minutes.

Turn off the oven and open the oven door. Let the cheesecake sit in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the center has set completely.

Step 4: Let the cheesecake cool

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Remove the baking pan from the oven, then carefully transfer the springform pan to a wire rack and let the cheesecake cool on the rack for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides from the pan with a knife, then remove the foil. Cool the cheesecake for one hour longer, then refrigerate it for three hours or overnight, covering it when it’s completely cooled.

Step 5: Add the topping

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Microwave the cookie spread for 10 to 15 seconds, until it’s slightly runny. Spread the topping evenly over the cheesecake, then sprinkle additional crushed Biscoff cookie crumbs over the top, if desired.

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Biscoff Cheesecake Variations

• Add whipped cream: A few decorative swirls or dots of whipped cream would look nice on top of this cheesecake.
• Top it with whole cookies: Instead of sprinkling crumbs over the Biscoff spread, decorate with whole cookies. For example, take round Biscoff cookies and stick them into the cheesecake’s surface on their edges.
• Drizzle more cookie butter spread in patterns: Heat up a little cookie spread, place it in a piping bag and pipe patterns over the top of the cheesecake. You can do that whether you’ve topped the whole cheesecake with a layer of cookie butter spread or not.

How to Store Biscoff Cheesecake

Place the cheesecake, either whole or in slices, in an airtight container. Store it in the refrigerator for five to seven days.

Can you freeze Biscoff cookie cheesecake?

Yes. If you want to freeze an entire cheesecake for a later event, get a food-grade, cardboard cake round and place the cheesecake on that. Freeze it for a short time, about 30 minutes, until the top and sides are firm. Then wrap the entire cheesecake and cake round in freezer-safe wrap. Store it in the freezer for one month. You may be able to get a second month out of it, but the quality will likely start to degrade after the first month. If you just want to freeze leftover cheesecake for later, slice the remaining cheesecake into portions, and freeze and wrap them as you would a whole cheesecake. In either case, let the cheesecake thaw in the refrigerator before serving.

Biscoff Cheesecake Tips

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Why do you need to wrap the bottom of the pan in foil?

Cheesecake is baked in a springform pan, where you can separate the bottom and the sides. The pan is placed in a water bath at one point in the recipe. The seal between the bottom and sides is not tight enough to stop water from leaking in, so you need to wrap the base and sides of the pan in a few layers of foil to create another barrier. The foil should reach up high enough that the edges are well above the surface of the water. And definitely use two layers, and not just one.

How do you avoid making the crust too hard or too soggy?

A cookie crust that’s too hard is usually the result of adding too much melted butter or pressing the crumbs down too forcefully in the pan. That compacts them enough that they can become very hard after baking. First, try being a little more gentle when patting the crumbs into the pan. If that doesn’t help, you can try reducing the melted butter. But be very cautious regarding how much you take out because too little butter will prevent the crust from solidifying properly during baking. You could end up with a crumbly crust that doesn’t stay together.

As for soggy crusts, the prebaking stage should help, as should wrapping the pan with foil. However, if those aren’t enough, you have a couple of options. If the base is wet from leaking water, but it isn’t completely soggy and is still relatively solid, move the cheesecake onto a stack of paper towels. The towels may absorb the excess water before it has a chance to seep further into the crust. If you’ve noticed the crust becoming soggy when the cheesecake has been in the refrigerator for a few days, next time you make it, try adding a layer of beaten egg white or corn syrup to the crust during the last few minutes of the initial baking stage.

How do you stop the top from cracking?

Out of all the issues bakers can experience with cheesecakes, the cracked top is one of the most frustrating. The cracks occur when the filling expands during baking and then contracts during cooling, and it usually occurs when the cheesecake has been overbaked. So, tips for making the perfect cheesecake:

If you’re sure you haven’t left the cheesecake in the oven for longer than the time specified in the recipe, calibrate your oven. Get oven thermometers and preheat the oven to a specific temperature, like 325° or 350°. Place a thermometer in the center of the oven, and if you have other thermometers, place those in back, front, on an upper rack and on a lower rack. What you want to see is if the oven is heating to a higher temperature than you’ve set it to, and also if there are hot spots in the oven. It’s possible for your oven to heat to 375° when you’ve set the dial to 350°, for example. If the temperature difference is less than 25°, you can compensate by setting the temperature lower or higher as needed. But if the difference is more than that, or if there’s a noticeable cold spot or hot spot, you probably need to have the oven repaired. You’ll also want to ensure the oven is level so that the cheesecake filling isn’t slightly too shallow in one spot and too thick in another, which can affect how under- or overbaked the filling becomes.