January 10, 2020–I’ve made this particular cheesecake once before in May 2016 (see Yes, Please!) when I lived in Miami. One of my employees asked me if I could make a birthday cake that included both of the favorite cakes–carrot cake and cheesecake. I’m always up for a challenge so adapted a recipe I found on the Food Network website.
I’m not one to brag, who am I kidding, but that looks pretty good! Flash forward a few years and I receive a similar request but this time the carrot cake needs to be gluten free!!! The carrot cake uses 1 cup of flour and the cheesecake uses 3 tablespoons. Since I normally have almond flour in my pantry I decided to use it as a replacement for my AP-flour. In my research on the inter webs it recommends that start off by replacing the volume of flour in the recipe with the same volume of almond flour. It also stated that I may need to slightly increase the amount of baking powder and/or baking soda to accommodate the heavier weight of the almond flour. Finally, I may need to using either more almond flour or less liquid to help balance the extra moisture from the almond flour. The carrot cake is baked ‘twice’. First by itself, then with the cheesecake batter on top. Surprisingly, the carrot cake does not dry out but you do recommend that you slightly under bake it.
Now that I’m armed with the knowledge I put my miseducating en place in place; try saying that fast five times. The wet ingredients for the carrot cake included eggs, oil, sugar, and shredded carrots. I grated my own carrots to ensure that I could control the consistency and texture.
Dry ingredients: Almond flour, baking powder, nutmeg, kosher salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, cardamon, and chopped toasted pecans.
Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients.
Add the shredded carrots to the wet ingredients. Stir until combined.
Fold the carrot-egg mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Since there is no flour you do not have to worry about building up the gluten content but I think it is a good practice to never over mix your batter.
Since I wanted to make the cake easily sliceable I used a 9-inch square cake pan instead of a springform pan. To ensure that I could get the cakes out of the pan I lined it with lightly greased parchment paper. The batter is baked in a 350 degree oven until a toothpick comes out clean; 20-25 minutes.
While the carrot cake baked I prepared the cheesecake. In the bowl of my mixer, I beat the cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar until it was smooth.
Once it was smooth, I added 3 eggs one at a time; scarping down the bowl after each addition.
To this mixture I added the almond flour, lemon juice and zest, vanilla paste.
Pour this mixture on top of the carrot cake, place in a water bath, and bake until the center is slightly jiggles. I always rotate my cakes at the halfway cooking time mark. Also, if you are using a springform pan you would need to wrap it in foil to ensure that no water enters the pan.
Once the cheesecake is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool completely on a rack. Once it is cool, cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
Prepare the sour cream topping; about one hour before you will serve the cheesecake, by whisking together confectioners’ sugar, sour cream, salt, and vanilla extract/paste and/or bourbon.
Spread this mixture on top and garnish with chopped toasted pecans. Since this was going to be a birthday cake I slightly stepped it up. I made the cupcakes with some of the extra batter and to ensure that the birthday girl got to enjoy her cake since I knew the actual cake would be gone!
As I said earlier, I am not one to brag but….
