To celebrate Lunar New Year, I wanted to do a dessert that was inspired by nian gao, which are these brown sugar-infused glutinous rice cakes. I grew up eating nian gao, and admittedly as a child, I thought they contained fish. Mostly because the texture, being so dense and chewy, made it seem like these were made with protein. And also it did not help that the label on the box we would buy had koi fish on them. So my little 6-year old brain thought that these delicious mochi-like morsels were made with koi fish meat. Thankfully, they are not, so my commitment to enjoying these has since thrived when I realized that they were literally just made with rice flour, brown sugar, and water. Nian gao on its own is gluten-free and vegan, and these basque cheesecakes manage to still be gluten-free! Why I chose to combine nian gao with basque cheesecake is because I was imagining this dessert with a creamy interior, and the crispy-chewy nian gao edges. That left me with either nian gao-inspired pate choux, or basque cheesecake. That and since I had to basically write up, test, photograph, and edit the content for this recipe by today(since tomorrow is Lunar/Chinese New Years), I wanted to go with the recipe I knew would be a lot more doable, being the basque cheesecake(I swear I am not usually this bad with procrastinating, it was just that I was out for a week traveling and the week before that, I was dealing with torrential floods and the fallout of that, so I was essentially left with two days to handle the R&D on this). That being said, this being probably the fastest turnaround on a recipe post I have ever done on this blog, I was still very happy with the end results!

For the cheesecake itself, it is made by combining two primary mixtures – a cream cheese-egg one, and a brown sugar-cream-rice flour one. The former is simply made by whipping cream cheese with eggs. And to that, we have the more technical part of this cheesecake: the brown sugar-cream-rice flour batter. That is first made by boiling down brown sugar, cream/coconut milk, and spices until the sugar fully dissolves. Traditional nian gao is made by brown rock sugar, which I actually used in my reel for it on Instagram. The challenge with this is that brown rock sugar can take upwards to 10 minutes to dissolve, depending on how big of pieces you are dealing with. I found that leaving the pot covered while melting the brown sugar down helps immensely in terms of you not losing too much liquid in the boiling process. You can also just say “to hell with that”, and use regular brown sugar, which will melt faster(but is less traditional in nian gao). Then comes the next step: whisking in the mochiko to that boiling mixture. Here, you have to move relatively quickly. The moment you introduce a flour to a hot liquid, the starches in the flour start to gel, and if you do not whisk it fast enough, that gelled flour forms into lumps. So it is highly important that you whisk vigorously so that the mochiko does not form lumps in the brown sugar mixture. From there, the recipe is relatively straightforward. You fold the two mixtures together, line some cake pans with parchment, bake then broil the cheesecakes, and let those cool down before unmolding them. I garnished my cheesecakes with Chinese dates, also called jujube, since that is a traditional garnish for nian gao, but sesame seeds are another fun garnish you can use as well!

Makes 4 4-inch basque cheesecakes:
For the batter:
6oz dark brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream or coconut milk
1 cup water
a pinch of salt
1g ground allspice*
1g ground ginger
1/4 cup mochiko
16oz cream cheese
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 jujube(Chinese dates); pitted and halved

In a pot, heat up sugar, cream/coconut milk, water, salt, allspice, and ginger on medium heat until the sugar fully dissolves. Once the sugar is fully melted, whisk into that the mochiko and stir everything on medium-high heat until it comes up to a boil. In a mixing bowl, cream together the cream cheese, eggs, and vanilla first. Pour into that the thickened brown sugar-milk mixture and whip everything until combined. Line 4 4-inch cake pans with parchment and divide the batter amongst the pans. Bake at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes first. Then turn the heat up to broil, and continue for another 2 minutes. Freeze the cheesecakes for at least 1 hour before attempting to unmold. Top with the jujube halves to finish.