Goat cheese cake with macadamia nuts

A while ago, about six or five years, I saw a cheesecake with caramelised macadamia nuts in the window of a French deli in Riga. M'Archers. Such a little cheesecake, I thought. Yet so sexy and tempting. It really was. Both - taste and texture-wise. This is my version of the cake. It's not the same, and it doesn't need to be because that's why I will continue to visit M'Archers when in Riga. This is a version I and everyone else likes, and that's enough. 


base:
250 g butter cookies (Sables bretons in France)
90 g of butter
pinch of sea salt

filling:
420 g goat cream cheese, room temperature
430 g cream cheese, room temperature
40 g corn starch
1/2 vanilla pod seeds
pinch of sea salt
210 g golden caster sugar
3 medium organic eggs, room temperature
2 egg yolks
300 g sour cream (35 to 35%)
1 /3 tonka bean, grated

topping:
300-400 g macadamia nuts with salt
caramel sauce


Heat the oven to 200° from the top and bottom. Place the rack one level below the center. Line the base of a cake pan (23 cm) with baking paper.

Process the cookies into fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and mix. Put the mixture in the bottom of the cake pan and smooth to 5 mm thick. Bake in the oven for 15 mins. Remove and cool for 5 minutes.

Prepare the filling. Place the cream cheeses, starch, vanilla, and salt in a mixing bowl. Beat with the paddle for about 2 minutes until the mixture is pliable, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl. While mixing, add sugar and beat for about 1 min.

Then, with the mixer running, add an egg. Beat on medium speed. While the mixer is running, add the remaining eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and carefully scraping down the sides of the bowl to incorporate. While the mixer is still running, add the cream on low speed, and beat just until thoroughly mixed.

Turn the oven temp down to 140°. 

Pour the filling on the base and bake in the oven for 1 h and 15 mins (do not open the door). Remove the cake from the oven and cool to room temp. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for at least 6 h, but better 12 h

Before serving, mix the caramel and nuts in a bowl and decorate the cake, either in the middle or around it, but it is important that every slice has some nuts (and not just one, but several)