Grandma's Creamy Mandarin Cheesecake Dessert
Ingredients
Cake base
- 5 eggs
- 150 g sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
- a pinch of salt
- 100 g all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- lemon zest from 1 lemon
Filling and topping
- 1 (175 g) can mandarin oranges, drained
- 5 sheets gelatin
- 60 g sugar
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 500 g quark (20% fat)
- 600 g heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
Preparation
Preheat oven to 180°C (convection: 160°C). Place eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon zest in a bowl and beat on high speed for about 3-4 minutes until a thick liquid mass forms. Mix salt, flour, and cornstarch well and sift into the egg mixture. Line a springform pan (26 cm diameter) with parchment paper. Gently fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture with a spatula, pour the biscuit batter into the prepared springform, and bake for about 20 minutes in the preheated oven.
Let the cake base cool completely, then cut it horizontally in half to create two layers. Place a cake ring around the first layer. Whip the cream and set aside about 150 g in a piping bag with a tip for decoration (keep in the refrigerator until decorating).
Soak the gelatin sheets in very cold water. Pour the mandarin orange juice into a saucepan and heat with sugar and lemon juice (do not boil!). Squeeze the gelatin sheets well and dissolve in the mandarin juice. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add 1-2 tablespoons of quark to the mandarin-gelatin mixture and stir briefly. Then add the mixture to the remaining quark and mix everything. Fold in the remaining whipped cream. Arrange the mandarin oranges on the biscuit base, reserving 12 nice mandarins for decoration.
Pour the quark mixture over the first cake layer and let it set in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Cut the top half of the cake base into 12 equal pieces and use them to decorate the cheesecake. Pipe 12 whipped cream rosettes and dust the cake slices with powdered sugar. Place a mandarin segment on each rosette.
