Quick Belgian peperkoek cheesecake

This quick Belgian peperkoek cheesecake is an easy-to-make unbaked fridge cheesecake that is an homage to "peperkoek" a traditional Belgian breakfast loaf that contains numerous spices. With boozy black cherries and lemon, it's perfect for anyone who doesn't like puddings too sweet and you can prepare it in less than 20 minutes preparation time.

This is a brand new recipe I whipped up as a last-minute thing. I discovered that I didn't have enough of a key ingredient for a more traditional baked German cheesecake I was planning (3kg of quark? Seriously?). Cut short with a promised Sunday lunch for special friends, I needed to come up with something.

The concept behind the three-course Sunday slap-up was a theme vaguely celebrating the food culture Turkish gastarbeiters brought with them to Germany; so a kind of German-Turkish thing. And the second aspect was to celebrate the amazing set of the world's finest peppers my brother-in-law Karel kindly gave me as a birthday gift at the end of October.

Fortunately, my stash of goodies brought from Belgium by my partner Luc included peperkoek, a traditional Belgian spiced loaf usually eaten for breakfast or as a snack. I already had plans for it in another new savoury recipe, but it proved a lifesaver here.

Monastic enterprise

Peperkoek has a long and illustrious history. Based on Roman traditions of spiced breads brought to the lands of the Belgae, 13th-century accounts detail how it was produced in monasteries, a kind of fine rye flour loaf made with a dark sugar, that gives it its colour, which contained a variety of herbs and spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg, etc.) The herbs and spices supposedly gave it medicinal qualities, an early name for it being lijfkoek ("body loaf")—and, yes, I am being specific in this term "loaf" as a professional-level translator. The word "koek" in Dutch usually refers to loafs or other simple baked goods, usually with a sweet aspect, without all the fancy trimmings. The word "taart" is more commonly used where English uses the word "cake".

Unquestionably a luxury food during the Middle Ages, the monks never missed an opportunity for good marketing and imbued it with a half-baked myth that the recipe had been brought back by crusaders from the Holy Land.

Later, when trade with Asia expanded, pepper became an additional ingredient, giving it the name of peperkoek, the name that endures in Flanders (the Walloons call it pain d'épices) , and underscoring it's luxury credentials: at the time pepper was the most expensive spice in the world.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, its production spread to the regions that are today the Netherlands and, with the availability of honey being more widespread, this too was added to the recipe for this highly desirable loaf, as was the Dutch tradition of coating the top of the loaf with crystalised sugar.

From the 19th century onwards is was industrially produced and often comes pre-sliced, and with an amazingly long shelf-life. In the Netherlands, it became know as ontbijtkoek ("breakfast loaf") or kruidkoek ("herb loaf"). Similar to British date loaf, it is often eaten as breakfast or as an afternoon snack, smeared with butter or stroop, a kind of fruit molasses.

This recipe serves 4, whether as individual dishes or one larger "cake". It is fairly rich, so you might even be able to stretch it further.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

• If you can't get peperkoek where you are and you don't want to bake your own (it's actually fairly simple to bake) the background info above is meant to be a bit of a guide. In many cultures, there is a strong tradition of this kind of spiced, dense loaf. The comparable pain d'épices recipes of Reims or Alsace, German gingerbread traditions or even English spice cake. So you can always substitute the peperkoek with a comparable local affair, as long as it contains similar spices and is not too crumbly.

• I have intentionally used tinned whole pitted black cherries in their own juice. You can use fresh black cherries, but if you do, they need to be very ripe bordering on overripe otherwise they will retain a tartness you want to avoid. Also, you will need to cook them a little longer in the wine to ensure they are suitably soft.

• Though not excessive, the black pepper is central to this dish. Make sure you use good quality pepper and grind it roughly using a pestle and mortar, not a pepper mill. Those little flakes of peppercorn is where the magic lies.

Shopping list

• 250g quark

• 150ml double cream

• 35g full-fat plain cream cheese

• The zest of 1 lemon

• 4 slices of peperkoek (or equivalent); cubed

• 1tspn good quality black peppercorns, roughly ground

• 1 400g tin of pitted black cherries in their juice

• 2tbspns of demerara sugar

• 2tbspns caster sugar

• 1tbspn unsalted butter

• ½ a glass of dry white wine

Cooking Method

the quick Belgian peperkoek cheesecake

1. Melt the butter in a frying pan on a medium heat. When hot, add the peperkoek and stir the cubes around so all are coated with the butter. When the edges show signs of being slightly "cooked", sprinkle over the demerara sugar and stir continuously until the sugar begins to caramelise on the peperkoek. Add a little more butter if necessary to prevent sticking. Stir continuously until the pan is dry but all the sugar has caramelised. Remove from the heat and allow to cool fully

2. Add the black cherries to a small saucepan together with 4tbspns of their juice. Pour in all the wine and simmer on a medium heat until the liquid cooks off. You're not particularly looking for them to be "cooked", just to have absorbed a mildly boozy flavour. Remove from the heat and allow to cool fully

3. Grate the lemon zest onto a plate or into a small shallow dish. Barely cover with a dash of the wine and allow it to soak in while you start preparing the cheesecake topping

4. Add the quark, cream cheese and double cream to a bowl and whisk by hand or with an electric mixer for a few minutes; until it thickens. Add the caster sugar, and whisk until the mixture becomes reasonably thick. Do this about a tablespoon at a time to gauge how sweet you want it

5. Add the lemon zest and the black pepper (in this order), whisking until you have a dense, thick mixture

6. Once cooled, place the caramelised peperkoek cubes into the bottom of your ramekins or dish. Follow this with placing the black cherries on top of the peperkoek

7. Spoon over the cheesecake mix. Don't try to force the cheesecake mixture into the bottom of the ramekins/dish. It's rather thick. Ease a bit of it down using a simple, slim straight implement, such as a chopstick, but don't worry too much about it not pressing heavily against the peperkoek and black cherry base.

8. Top with the remaining caramelised peperkoek and place in the fridge to set fully for at least two hours before serving. Eet smakelijk!

   
   

Alternatives

This dish is already (lacto) vegetarian. I could say I have never attempted it with the vegan alternatives to quark, cream cheese and double cream because I've only just created it. The truth is I shall never try it with plant-based products, so can't really comment. And, if you are a hardcore vegan, peperkoek contains honey, so that's another issue.

Pairings

This pudding works beautifully with a rather mellow Ueshima House Blend, a strong but smooth coffee that doesn't fight with the spices. I'm sure that there are really good dessert wine options that will work with this one, but I leave that to the sommelier in the family... Give me a break! I've only just got it out of the gate.