salty caramel cheesecake

This is heaven! Salty caramel was on my mind for a long while as all contrasting flavor combinations are extremely appealing to me. I decided to give it a go in a form of this cheesecake and now I want more! Rich, creamy, smooth texture and such an intensive taste. Salty caramel is my new chocolate! No I am thinking: salty caramel ice creams. Any other suggestions?

for one small cheesecake you will need:

500  g of cream cheese (Tesco's full fat worked fine for me)

100  g butter

0.5  cup of brown sugar

0.5  cup of double cream

  2  eggs

0.35 cup caster sugar

salt 

(I used a mould of 22 cm diameter)

I went for base-free option, but if you don't prefer to have a base you need additional 40 g of butter and 1.5 cup of finely crushed digestive biscuits. 

To prepare a cheesecake base (optional!)melt the butter in a small saucepan on a low heat or just in microwave. Mix crushed biscuits with melted butter - the mixture should have a wet sand texture. Place the buttered crumbs in the mould and press it slighly to form a base. Put in the refrigerator to chill for 15-30 minutes.

To prepare the actual cheesecake filling take a small saucepan and melt brown sugar in it. Add butter and double cream. I know it may not look very attractive for a moment or two, but when you continue to boil the mixture on medium heat for another 10 minutes it will create a lovely, dense toffee sauce. Cool it a little bit (preferably to room temperature) and add cream cheese and caster sugar. Mix well. Time for tricky bit: salt. It is hard to tell how intensive saltiness your taste buds would prefer in this case so it is best if you add it pinch by pinch and try cheesecake mixture several times (it's pure pleasure anyway). All together I added 1.5 tsp of salt, but you may like to add more/less. After you added salt, add 2 eggs and mix. Pour into buttered mould or on the previously prepared base and bake for approximately 1 hour at 180 degrees C. To avoid burning the top, I covered my cheesecake with kitchen tin foil for 45 minutes and removed it only for last 15 minutes of baking.

For decoration, I melted 2 spoons of caster sugar on the non-stick pan, cooled it down a little bit and made this caramel pattern you can see on the pictures. Anyway, it still tastes better than it looks.