
Baked Chai Cheesecake
So I have this policy at work where I tell my team mates that they can pick any type of cake they want for their birthday and I will make it. It’s never actually backfired yet, but there have been a few times where I think they just like to test me. Case in point – E asked me if I could make her a chai cheesecake for her birthday. There are NO recipes I could find online at that stage… so I made up my own.
It was pretty delicious…
Now, I drink chai lattes (they’re common here in Australia, but I have no idea what happens in other countries). My favourite brand of chai spice is this brand called Arcadia (you can kind of see it in the photo above). Luckily I can purchase tins of it at Woolworths (can’t say I have seen it anywhere else). If you want to try it, it is located in the tea and coffee aisle, and there are 2 types – spice and vanilla. You could probably substitute this for most other types of chai powder. I do NOT recommend using chai tea leaves or a brew as a substitute.
Ingredients
Base:
- 250g packet of plain/light nut biscuits (I used Arnott’s Butternut)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 150g butter (softened)
Cheesecake filling:
- 350g cream cheese (room temperature)
- 300mL sour cream
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 1/4 cup chai powder
Method
Base:
- Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan forced).
- Grease a 22cm or 9″ cake tin (I say ‘cake tin’, but I use silicon forms – generally no need to grease this. Hot tip if you use silicon – I always place the silicon onto a flat baking tray so the base doesn’t get cracked when you move it around. Pizza trays are also good as they are usually around the same size).
- Add biscuits to food processor and blend to fine bread crumbs.
- Mix cinnamon and butter into biscuit crumbs until even consistency.
- Press butter crumb mixture evenly into the base of the cake tin. Place into refrigerator.
Cheesecake filling:
- Add cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar to medium sized bowl and mix well (but gently – you don’t want to aerate the cheesecake).
- Add eggs one at a time and continue mixing.
- Add chai powder and mix through (you can see that I didn’t mix well in the photo – there’s a whole chunk of cream cheese mixture in the bottom of the cake… Oops!).
- Take base out of refrigerator and pour cream cheese mixture onto this.
- Bake in oven for 1 hour (or until light brown and not wobbly).
- Remove from oven to cool.
- Refrigerate overnight.
- Take to work and impress your colleagues with your amazing baking skills. Or eat it all yourself – no judgement here 😉

