Apples are in season and one of the best way you can use them is by making this delicious Apple Crumble Cheesecake with salted caramel sauce. It's rich, but not overly sweet, perfect to enjoy cold with a warm cup of tea!
You guys went absolutely nuts about this Apple Crumble Cheesecake with salted caramel sauce when I posted it on Instagram two weeks ago! And honestly?
My heart was just so full, I couldn't be happier. Even @thebakefeed shared it on their IG feed - gahh! It's insanely good and incredibly easy to make, I'm sure you'll absolutely love it.
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How to make apple crumble cheesecake?
For this recipe, I adapted my Perfect Lemon Cheesecake recipe.
For the base, I kept a classic cookie crust using Digestive biscuits. You can use Graham Crackers or anything similar, that isn't too sweet or overpowering.
To get more of an apple pie vibe, you can make a pie crust and blind bake it before pouring the filling in. You can check my favourite all-butter pie crust recipe here.
I always add lemon in my cheesecakes, because I love to enhance that tanginess of the cream cheese.
Since my original cheesecake batter is quite thin and I wanted to top it with apples and streusel, I had to adapt it a little bit.
Hence, I used just two tablespoons of lemon juice and instead of using large eggs, I opted for medium sized ones. It worked like a charm!
The cheesecake batter was still creamy enough to get that fluffy texture, but not too thin so it can't hold the toppings.
Now, for the best part. Apple Crumble topping!
I used Granny Smith apples because they are slightly tart and hold their shape really well while baking.
If you don't have these, then use the ones most similar to these. Since you're drizzling caramel sauce over the cheesecake, you don't want it to be too sweet using sweet apples.
How to make salted caramel?
I've talked about caramel on several of my other recipes. The most in depth explanation of how to make salted caramel sauce you can find in my Caramel Applesauce cupcakes recipe.
I really should do a separate post just for caramel sauce, but somehow I never have enough time for all the process shots. Fingers crossed I find some extra time for that - SOON!
Anyways, you shouldn't be afraid of caramel sauce. If it fails, don't get discouraged, just practice and make another one. Luckily, sugar is cheap. 🙂
You want to get your sugar to golden amber colour.
Anything too dark and you probably burned your caramel. On the other hand, if it's too light you won't get enough flavour.
Then all you have to do is mix it with some heavy cream et voila - you made your own caramel sauce! 🙂
But be sure to read more helpful information here.
looking for more fall desserts?
The Softest Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
Fluffy doughnuts with orange vanilla pastry cream
Walnut Baklava with Citrus Syrup
Rocky Road Baked Donuts
Pumpkin Spice Tiramisu
If you make this gorgeous cheesecake, let me know by tagging me on Instagram @anasbakingchronicles or tell me all about it in the comments section down below. I love seeing your creations! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Happy baking!
Love,
Ana
📖 Recipe
apple crumble cheesecake with salted caramel sauce
Description
ingredients
cookie crust
- 80 g Digestive cookies (crumbs)
- 40 g melted butter (unsalted)
- ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
cheesecake filling
- 300 g cream cheese (room temperature)
- 70 g granulated sugar
- 35 g lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
- 2 medium eggs (room temperature)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
apple crumble topping
- 2 medium granny smith apples (peeled and diced)
- 30 g granulated sugar
- pinch of nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 45 g all-purpose flour
- 30 g rolled oats
- 60 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 60 g brown sugar
salted caramel sauce
- 150 g caster sugar
- 40 g water
- 120 g heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat your fan oven to 150°C (300°F) or 165°C if you're not using a fan oven. Line the bottom of a 18 cm (7 inch) springform pan with baking paper. Set aside.
- Using a food processor ground your cookies. In a separate bowl, combine them with melted butter, cinnamon and granulated sugar using a spoon. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake for 5-6 minutes then set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon juice until combined and smooth. Add one egg at the time, scraping the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is thoroughly combined. Set aside while you prepare the topping.
- Peel and dice apples. You should have around 130 g of diced apple. If you put too much, the filling might not support the topping. In a small bowl, combine apples with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Make streusel topping by mixing together all-purpose flour, rolled oats, unsalted butter and sugar. Squeezing it with your hands, you should be able to form small clumps to scatter over apples.
- Pour the filling over a cooled and baked cookie crust. Smooth it out with a small offset spatula. Sprinkle with prepared apples, then with streusel topping. You might not need all of it. Bake for 25-30 minutes in a preheated oven.
- Once it's done, place the pan on a cooling rack and leave it to cool to room temperature. Then put the cheesecake in the fridge to cool completely, at least 4 hours.
- Before serving, generously drizzle over caramel sauce. Enjoy!
for the salted caramel sauce
- In a thick bottom saucepan combine sugar and water. Make sure every sugar granule is covered with water. Heat it up over medium to high heat, until it reaches golden amber colour. DO NOT STIR IT. This will take about 15 minutes.
- While the sugar is dissolving, heat the heavy cream to a simmer. Once the sugar syrup reaches a desired colour, pour the heavy cream over it in a steady stream, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula. There will be a lot of bubbles and steam, be careful not to burn yourself.
- Once all the bubbles have subsided, put the saucepan back on the stove and cook it for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. When it's done, put the caramel sauce in a clean jar and leave it to cool to room temperature.
IMPORTANT
All the recipes are developed and tested using only metric measurements and a kitchen scale. The U.S. cup and spoon measurements are provided for your convenience, but I highly recommend getting a digital kitchen scale and measuring in metrics. It's easy and always guarantee the same results in baking!
Nutrition
The nutritional information and US conversions are calculated automatically. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this data. If this is important to you, please verify with your favourite nutrition calculator and/or unit conversion tool.
Matea says
Ana, I really like this recipe and can't wait to try it! Can you just tell me when to add salt to my caramel, with the heavy cream or in the beginning? Thank you!
Ana Zelić says
Oh, I forgot to mention it. I add it after the heavy cream, just before you're ready to put in a jar! 🙂
Caroline says
Hi Ana. I made this recipe yesterday, and I can tell you its a MASSIVE hit with my family (especially my husband) - we have a new family favourite!! It’s absolutely mouthwatering. One thing that I struggled with though was the measurements - Im not used to baking using weight instead of volume. Is there any way to perhaps adapt it? Maybe it’s just me - Im from South Africa and we generally use cups / tablespoons etc in recipes. Thanks again!
Ana Zelić says
Hi, Caroline! I'm so happy everyone liked it, that's the best compliment I could get! 🙂
I know that a lot of people use cups, but I can get them here and I'm a firm advocate of using a kitchen scale, because it's easier and you can't go wrong. I tried to find cups on Amazon to measure my recipes, but discovered that there are different cup measurements too. Some countries use 250 ml, some 240, some 237 ml. So I'm not comfortable converting recipes in something I don't understand, because I might get it wrong and the recipe can get a bad rep because of it.
If you want, you can google the usual conversion measurements and try that, but I can't vouch for it if something goes wrong. I have a really cheap kitchen scale, maybe 8$ US and I can't bake without it.
Hope you understand!
Ana x
Tracy Connolly says
Hi Ana. I made this cheesecake for a dinner party desert last weekend. It was easy to make and everyone was so impressed. Thank you for the recipe.
Ana Zelić says
Hi Tracy,
thank you for your feedback - I'm so glad everyone liked it, makes me very happy! 🙂
Best,
Ana x
Nad Lokman says
Hi Ana,
I made the apple crumble cheesecake for tea break and everybody love it so much. Thanks for the recipe! Two thumbs up😍
Ana Zelić says
That makes me so happy, thank you! xx
Sandra says
Thank you for posting this recipe. Have just made this cheesecake but decided to to cook the cheesecake and the apples and crumble topping separately . I used a round tin fitted with baking paper which I added the apples then topped this with the crumble baking it in the oven 180 celsius for 15 minutes until golden brown. Once cooled I flipped the round onto a plate, removed the baking paper and then flipped the plate onto the cooled cheesecake. This way I found I didn’t worry about having the apple crumble mixture sink into the cheesecake. Worked a treat!
Rebecca says
Wow!!! This was my first ever attempt at a cheesecake and holy smokes did it deliver! I always thought cheesecake would be hard to make but this was as easy as promised and it is decadent as heck. For the caramel sauce, I used raw sugar instead of caster sugar as it's what I had on hand and it's quite brown to begin with, so it was a little hard to judge when it was done. I was too cautious with it so it wasn't quite as caramelized as it could have been in the end, but it was still tasty. I made this for my husband's birthday (well, it was a joint effort, can't claim full credit!) and it's a major hit, honestly one of the nicest cheesecakes we've ever had. Because it's only the two of us I'm going to try freezing half of it and see how it goes (if I make it again I will use half the ingredients and a smaller pan to make a miniature one). Thanks for sharing, this was a lot of fun!
Sharon says
If i want to bake bigger size one with 9 inches, how should I adjust the ingredients?
Ana Zelić says
Hi, Sharon!
You can double the ingredients, but might get just a slightly taller cheesecake which is totally fine 🙂
You don't need to double the ingredients for the caramel sauce, though!
Hope this helps x
Kendall says
Hey Ana,
If you double the recipe do you recommend cooking it for longer than 25-30 minutes?
Thank you 🙂
Ana Zelić says
Hi Kendall!
It depends, if you double the recipe but still use a smaller pan so the cheesecake it's quite thick, then yes. However, if you use a 9 or 10-inch pan, then the thickness will be the same, so the baking time shouldn't increase considerably. For instance, my Lemon Cheesecake which this recipe is based on, only needs about 30 min baking time in a 10-inch pan. I would suggest to still check the cheesecake at 25 min and then adjust the baking time.
Hope I didn't confuse you! 🙂
Filipa says
This was a huge success with my family!! I was afraid it wouldn't be sweet enough but the caramel balances it perfectly!
Ana Zelić says
I'm so happy to hear that! Thank you for your feedback! 🙂 xx