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Salted Caramel Cheesecake
Bored with the look of plain cheesecakes? Here's a meringue frosting-topped Salted Caramel Cheesecake recipe that looks as good as it tastes!
Equipment
- 1 Springform pan (I used an 9" pan)
- 1-2 large sheets of foil (for water bath; optional but recommended)
- Large baking tray or roasting pan (for water bath; optional but recommended)
- small piping bag + star tip (for decorating)
- small offset spatula (for decorating)
Ingredients
Crust
- 40 Nilla wafer or Trefoil cookies (crushed or blended; about 1 ¾ cups crumbs)
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons butter (melted)
Caramel Cheesecake
- 24 oz cream cheese (3 packages; softened)
- 1 ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup caramel sauce store-bought or make your own!
- 1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream
- 10 large egg yolks (beaten until pale; save the whites for something else – I used them in the meringue buttercream to decorate!)
Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- 5 extra large egg whites
- 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 sticks ¾ pound unsalted butter; room temperature
- ½ cup caramel sauce
Decorations
- ½ cup caramel sauce (you can purchase this or make your own!)
- 12-14 caramel squares (cut into quarters if they’re bigger than ½”)
Instructions
Crust
- Preheat the oven to 350℉. Use a rolling pin or food processor to pulse the cookies into fine crumbs. Add sugar, salt, and melted butter and stir to combine. Press the crumbs into the base of a 9- or 10-inch springform pan. Use a spatula or the base of a glass to press into the pans.
- Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Wrap the pan in a large sheet of foil when cool enough to handle – I recommend heavy-duty or grill foil because it comes in larger sheets and is less likely to tear. Set aside.
Cheesecake
- Lower the oven temperature to 325℉. In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat the cream cheese for 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl halfway through the beating time. Add sugar, vanilla bean paste, salt, and caramel sauce, and beat for another 3 minutes, scraping sides of the bowl periodically.
- Mixing continuously, stir in first the whipping cream and then the beaten egg yolks. Stir until combined, but don’t beat for a long period of time – overbeating can incorporate air bubbles that can cause bumps in the cheesecake top. The batter will be pretty thin; this is normal.
- Pour the batter evenly over the crust. Tap it on the counter a couple of times to remove any air bubbles. Transfer the foil-wrapped cheesecake into a large high-sided skillet, or a roasting pan.
- Fill the baking sheet or roasting pan with hot water (hot tap water is fine) to about halfway up the side of the springform pan. Carefully place in the oven.
- Bake at 325 for 60 minutes - it should be mostly set in the center and only jiggle slightly if the pan is shaken. (A bit of movement is okay; the cheesecake will continue to set as it cools. If it looks liquid-y though, bake an additional 10 minutes at a time until center appears more set.)
- When the cheesecake is mostly set, turn off the oven and crack the door – leave the pan in the oven to cool and set for at least 30 minutes. (This allows the cheesecake to cool gradually; they often crack if they cool too fast.)
- Remove from the water bath, and remove the foil. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours – or preferably overnight.
Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- First! Make sure your bowl is grease-free or your egg whites may not stiffen. (Disaster.) Wipe the bowl and whisk of your mixer with lemon juice or vinegar if you’re not sure.
- Whisk together egg whites, sugar, and salt in a stand mixer bowl. Once combined, whisk and heat over a saucepan of simmering water until hot to touch. The sugar should be fully dissolved (it shouldn’t look or feel grainy) and it’ll be a bit frothy. This should take 3-4 minutes.
- Wipe the bottom of the bowl, and transfer to stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high until the mixture is cool and the meringue holds a stiff peak – about 10 minutes.
- Remove the whisk and switch to the paddle attachment, beating continuously on medium speed add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, letting the butter fully incorporate before adding more. If the mixture gets too thin, you can refrigerate the bowl for a few minutes until the butter becomes more firm. Once all butter is incorporated, scrape down the bowl, add the caramel sauce, and beat until the frosting reaches a firm, whipped consistency.
- (Recipe credit here - Tasia of TwoSugarBugs.com! I modified this frosting recipe for this cheesecake - and I actually doubled it to have extra for chocolate caramel cupcakes! An option for those leftover egg whites.)
Assembly
- When your cheesecake has chilled and your frosting is ready, spread a generous layer of frosting over the cheesecake and smooth with your offset spatula. I used the spatula tip to make a circular pattern in the top of the cheesecake – up to you!
- Pipe small swirls of buttercream onto the rim of the cheesecake, and top each one with a small caramel square. Transfer a bit of caramel sauce to a small piping bag and drizzle a bit of caramel sauce around the cheesecake edge. Serve immediately. (Swiss meringue buttercream hardens after too much time in the fridge, so allow the frosting a bit of time to come to room temperature if you need to refrigerate the cheesecake between frosting and serving!)
Video
Notes
*You can sub in graham crackers if Trefoils or Nilla Wafers aren’t your thing!
(Please note nutrition information is an estimate and may not be exactly accurate. Counts will also be lower in all fields if the entire batch of frosting is not used.)
Nutrition
Serving: 1servingCalories: 610kcalCarbohydrates: 54gProtein: 8gFat: 42g
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