Tarte au Fromage (French goat cheesecake)

I found an amazing French cookbook dating back to 1943. One of the recipes that I would like to share with you guys today is Tarte au Fromage, French cheesecake that made in the Pitou Charante region of France. It is a light (definitely lighter in comparison to NY cheesecake made of cream cheese and cream) and just a little bit sweet tart made from goat cheese which is placed in an extremely hot oven for 15 minutes to create the burnt looking top and then turned off to finish cooking the pastry in the residual heat. Doesn’t  it sound like an awesome experiment to try out? 🙂

Ingredients for the pie crust: 1 cup +3 tbsp flour, 1/3 cup butter, Pinch of salt and a little bit of cold water.

For the filling: 4 large eggs, 300 gr goat cheese, ½ cup sugar, 1/3 cup corn flour, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp vanilla. extract

Start by preparing the pie crust. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in butter and mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water, a tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 280 C. Separate the egg whites and yolks. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. Set it aside. In a separate large bowl, whisk together egg yolks and sugar until pale colour and doubled in volume. Whisk in vanilla extract, baking powder, goat cheese and corn flour.  Whisk in about half of the egg whites. Gently fold the rest of it.

Roll the pastry and line a 9 inch pie dish, pour in all the filling. Bake at 280 C for 12-15 minutes, then turn the oven off and leave it in for 50 minutes to finish in residual heat.

Now, I don’t think I got it exactly right from the first time as it supposed to be fluffier. The recipe calls for very specific goat cheese from Charante region, while I used local (Ontario, Canada) one 🙂 It tastes delicious anyway! If you decide to give it a try, please let me know what goat cheese have you used and how did it turn out. Thank you 🙂

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