Now let’s cook
Cheesecake. Tary has entered the chat. It is roasted millet, scattered over each slice just before serving; the cracker base gets talkan, a flour of roasted grain.
Ingredients
- 100 g graham cracker crumbsCrushed graham crackers: thin, sweet wholewheat biscuits.
- 50 g talkanFlour of roasted, ground grain, most often wheat or barley.
- 28 g icing sugarIcing (confectioners’) sugar; it sweetens the crumb base.
- 85 g butterButter made from cow’s milk.
- 0.6 ml fine saltFine table salt.
- 452 g cream cheesePlain cream cheese in blocks, softened at room temperature before mixing.
- 133 g sugarWhite granulated sugar.
- 100 g eggLarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell.
- 2 g vanilla podVanilla pod; the seeds are scraped out and go into the filling.
- 30 g taryRoasted millet; use ready-made tary from a shop, not raw millet grains.
Method
Heat the oven to 175 °C. Use a pie dish at least 23 cm across the top and at least 3.2 cm deep. Melt the butter.
In a bowl, stir the graham cracker crumbs, talkan, icing sugar and salt into the melted butter until the mix is evenly damp and clumps when squeezed in your fist.
Spread the mix over the bottom and sides of the dish and press it down firmly, keeping it thicker on the bottom than on the sides.
Cut off about a third of the vanilla pod, split it lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with the back of a knife.
Beat the room-temperature cream cheese with the sugar at medium-low speed until smooth, trying not to whip in much air.
Add the room-temperature eggs and the vanilla seeds and mix until smooth again.
Pour the filling into the crust, level it and set the dish on a baking tray.
Bake for 20 minutes, then cover the rim of the crust with strips of foil and bake for 10 minutes more.
Check the centre of the filling with a thermometer: it should read at least 74 °C. If it is lower, keep baking and check again every 5 minutes until it reads 74 °C.
Cool the cheesecake on a rack, then cover it and keep it in the fridge until serving.
Just before serving, cut it into eight slices and scatter the tary over the top.
Safety
Bake the egg filling until its centre reaches at least 74 °C.