‘La Viña’ Cheesecake

Today we bring you 'La Viña' Cheesecake. This is a traditional cake from San Sebastián, in the Basque Country. More specifically, it is the famous cheesecake from 'La Viña' restaurant, located in the historic center of San Sebastián. This establishment has been serving this delicious cake for 28 years, and luckily, its recipe is not a closely guarded secret. Now we can enjoy its flavor at home and today on this website we share it with you.

Just to mention that this is the original recipe from the restaurant, so it is a generous cake that will give you 12 servings.

If you are a cheesecake lover, you will love this one as it is surprisingly tasty for how easy it is to prepare and it only has 5 ingredients.

How to make the recipe ‘La Viña’ Cheesecake

1. We use a round mold 26 cm in diameter. And we line it with crumpled kitchen paper to adapt to the round mold shape. Even if it's not perfect and wrinkled, it's fine because it will give the cake an irregular and rustic or homemade shape, making it look even more delicious.
2. Preheat the oven to 356º F with heat up and down (it is preferable not to use the hot air function).
3. We break the 7 free-range eggs into a bowl and set them aside.
4. In a different bowl, put the cream cheese and beat it with a manual whisk. If we prefer, we can use a food processor.
5. Without stopping to beat, we gradually incorporate the cream.
6. Then add the sugar.
7. Now it's time to add the eggs. Add the first one and keep beating until it's well mixed. Then add the second egg and do the same. And we continue doing the same with the rest of the eggs.
8. Finally, add the flour and beat until everything is well mixed. And we pour it into the mold that we have previously lined with baking paper.
9. Put it in the oven for about 60 minutes in total. But half of the baking time we should watch it so that it does not burn and if we see that it was burning we cover it with aluminum foil or with several layers of baking paper.
10. When we see that it is finished baking, turn off the oven and open the door a bit and wait half an hour for it to cool down gradually.
11. Then take it out and leave it outside on a rack so it can also breathe from below.
12. You'll see that when the cake is hot it puffs up a lot but don't worry because as it cools down it deflates.
13. When it's cool, you can put it in the fridge. An important thing to keep in mind with this cake is that it gains a lot in flavor if we manage to be patient and eat it the next day. It really will be worth it.
14. And finally, it will be important to take it out of the refrigerator a while before consuming it as it tastes much better at room temperature.

Notes and Tips

For the quantities of the original recipe, which are the ones we share in this recipe, it is important to use a mold about 26cm in diameter. If you have a larger or smaller mold, it would be good to adapt the proportional quantities of the ingredients so that you do not end up with a cake that is too thin or too thick as this could alter the flavor.

For the cake to be homogeneous, it will be easier if the ingredients are at room temperature.

While you can beat it by hand, it will be smoother and have fewer lumps if you use a food processor.

The better quality the cheese, the tastier the result will be. This will make a difference, so if you can get a higher quality or more artisanal one, you'll notice the difference.