Anna's Baked NY-Style Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce
The classic American cheesecake, rebuilt with grass-fed dairy: rich, dense, and tangy, on a buttery almond flour crust, sweetened with maple syrup, and served with a bright raspberry sauce. A no-bake raw variation is included.
Yield: One 9-inch cheesecake, serves 10–12 · Active: 30 min · Total: 6 hours, plus chilling overnight · Year-round (with fresh raspberries from late spring into fall) · Best eaten: afternoon
This is the American-style baked cheesecake: denser and tangier than an Italian mascarpone cheesecake, built on three grass-fed dairy foods (cream cheese, sour cream, and heavy cream) that give a real New York-style cheesecake its rich, slightly tangy body. Almond flour replaces the graham cracker crust, pure maple syrup replaces refined sugar, and everything depends on the dairy being as good as you can find. Made with conventional cream cheese, this is a good cheesecake. Made with grass-fed cream cheese from a local dairy, it's a different food altogether: the fat-soluble vitamins and rich, grassy flavor give it a depth no supermarket version can reach.
The raspberry sauce is the bright counterpoint to all that richness. Raspberries are one of the most polyphenol-rich berries there is, and cooked briefly with lemon and a little gelatin, they make a glossy, concentrated sauce that ties the whole plate together. A raw variation, set with gelatin instead of baked, is included too.
Ingredients
Crust
3 cups blanched almond flour
2 large pasture-raised eggs
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup grass-fed butter, softened
2 tbsp coconut sugar
Pinch of Baja Gold sea salt
Filling
3 cups (24 oz) grass-fed cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup grass-fed sour cream
1 cup grass-fed heavy cream
4 large pasture-raised eggs, at room temperature
⅔ cup maple syrup
Juice of ½ lemon
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
Pinch of Baja Gold sea salt
Raspberry sauce
2 pints fresh raspberries (or 24 oz frozen)
4 tbsp coconut sugar (or maple syrup)
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tsp grass-fed gelatin, bloomed in 2 tbsp cold water
Swaps: Raw cream cheese can be hard to find (raw soft cheeses can't be sold across state lines in the U.S., but they're available in some states and through herd shares), so the best grass-fed cream cheese you can find works well, like Kalona SuperNatural or Organic Valley.
This one is very similar to my Raw Strawberry Cheesecake.
Method
Prep. Heat the oven to 350°F, and line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment.
Make the crust. Pulse all the crust ingredients in a food processor until well combined, then press them firmly and evenly into the bottom of the pan.
Bake the crust 10 minutes, then let it cool while you make the filling. Lower the oven to 325°F.
Make the filling. Beat the cream cheese with a stand mixer or hand mixer until completely smooth, since any lumps will stay in the finished cake. Add the sour cream, cream, eggs, maple syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt, and mix on low, just until smooth. (Overbeating adds air, which can make it crack.)
Bake. Pour the filling over the cooled crust, and bake 50–60 minutes, until the edges are set but the center still jiggles slightly.
Cool slowly. Turn off the oven, prop the door open slightly, and let the cheesecake cool inside for 1 hour. Cooling it slowly helps prevent cracks and gives it its silky texture.
Chill at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. It's at its very best the next day.
Make the raspberry sauce. Sprinkle the gelatin over 2 tbsp cold water, and let it bloom 5 minutes. Cook the raspberries, coconut sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, stirring, until the berries break down. Take it off the heat, and stir in the bloomed gelatin until it dissolves. Press it through a fine-mesh sieve, for a seedless sauce, if you like, and let it cool.
Serve each slice drizzled with raspberry sauce.
Raw variation (no baking): Bloom 1 tbsp grass-fed gelatin in 3 tbsp cold water for 5 minutes, then dissolve it in 3 tbsp hot water. Blend it into the filling, pour it over a baked or unbaked crust, and chill at least 6 hours, until set. The texture is a little less velvety than the baked version, but it keeps the raw dairy's enzymes and live cultures. Since the eggs stay raw, use very fresh pasture-raised eggs from a source you trust.
Storage
Refrigerated, covered, up to 5 days; it's even better on days 2 and 3. Freeze individual slices, wrapped in parchment, up to 1 month. The raspberry sauce keeps up to 1 week. The raw variation keeps up to 3 days, and is best within 48 hours.
Nourishment Notes
Grass-fed dairy is a category of its own. Cream cheese, sour cream, and cream from cows on green pasture are rich in fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2, and CLA. Vitamin K2 helps direct calcium into bones and teeth, rather than soft tissue. Baking heats the dairy past pasteurization temperature, so the baked cake doesn't keep raw dairy's live enzymes and cultures, but its fat-soluble vitamins and CLA remain. (The raw variation keeps everything.) The cultures in cream cheese and sour cream produce lactic acid, which gives cultured dairy its characteristic tang, and sour cream, the tangiest of the three, is what gives a true New York cheesecake its signature flavor.
Pasture-raised eggs bring fat-soluble vitamins, choline, and complete protein. Six eggs across the crust and filling add about 36 grams of protein to the whole cake, far more than any flour-based dessert. Choline, which most modern diets fall short on, supports the liver, brain, and cell membranes. And the eggs' proteins set gently as the cheesecake bakes, giving it its silky, custardy texture.
Almond flour brings vitamin E, magnesium, and monounsaturated fats, and maple syrup brings manganese and zinc.
Raspberries are one of the most polyphenol-rich berries, with ellagic acid, anthocyanins, quercetin, and vitamin C. They also have one of the highest fiber-to-sugar ratios of any common fruit (about 8 grams of fiber and 5 grams of sugar per cup), so they're gentle on blood sugar. Grass-fed gelatin adds glycine and proline, the amino acids that build collagen.
This is a celebration dessert for birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries. The dairy is the heart of the recipe, so source it from a trusted farm (realmilk.com can help you find raw dairy near you). Enjoy it in the afternoon with espresso, or as the dessert course of an early dinner party. Rich in fat and protein, one slice is truly satisfying.
For your cycle: The dairy's calcium and vitamin D and the eggs' choline make this a nourishing treat in the luteal phase.
Sourcing
Cream cheese, sour cream, and heavy cream — raw grass-fed dairy from a farmer you know and trust, or the best grass-fed, organic, cultured dairy you can find, with no gums, like Kalona SuperNatural
Eggs — organic and pasture-raised, from a local farm or Alexandre Family Farm
Almond flour — organic and blanched (keep it in the fridge)
Grass-fed butter — organic, cultured butter from 100% grass-fed cows
Raspberries — organic, fresh in season or frozen
Gelatin — grass-fed, like Great Lakes or Vital Proteins
Maple syrup and coconut sugar — organic Grade A dark maple syrup; organic coconut sugar
Vanilla — organic pure vanilla extract
Lemons — organic
Salt — Baja Gold sea salt
— Anna aka Food Marshall