This Masala Chai Cheesecake is flavored with spices like cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and real black tea! The warm flavors make it a perfect dessert for the holidays! Topped with dulce de leche, this cheesecake is also egg-free and nut-free.

Chai is my love language, it really is. I don’t think anything gives me more happiness than my morning cup of masala chai (which by the way Sarvesh makes it, always). I have always loved spices in my dessert whether it’s in burfi or in cakes, and so I thought of making a cheesecake with spices and my favorite drink-chai!

The spices used for masala chai vary, everyone has a different preference. I always use cardamom and ginger in my chai. Rest depends on my mood, sometimes I will add cinnamon or cloves, peppercorn or fennel. Each spice adds its own flavor to chai and makes it special.

In this masala chai cheesecake, I have used ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. You can definitely add some ground pepper and all spices as well. To make the cheesecake taste like chai, I also used black tea bags and let them steep with heavy cream. So the cheesecake has actual tea flavor in it!

This Masala Chai Cheesecake

• is flavored with all the wonderful spices like cardamom, cinnamon, ginger.
• makes the perfect dessert for fall and the holiday season.
• is flavored with black tea bags and not just spices.
• is super creamy, smooth and full of warm flavors.
• perfect for those with egg allergy or nut-allergy.
• makes a great make-ahead dessert!

Step by Step Instructions

1- To a small pan on medium heat, add 165 ml of heavy cream (1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons). Heat it up, there’s no need to boil it but it should be thoroughly heated. Once it is heated, add 3 black tea bags to it. Stir and press the tea bags a little with a fork and then cover the pan with a lid and let sit for 20 minutes so that the tea can seep into the cream.

2- After 20 minutes, remove the tea bags from the cream. While removing the tea bags, press each against the pan so that you can get the maximum tea flavor out from each one of them. Your heavy cream should have a nice brown color now and should also smell of tea. Set this aside.

3- While the tea bags were seeping it, you should actually work on the crust. Preheat oven to 325 F degrees. Add 20 biscoff cookies to a food processor and pulse until you get cookie crumbs. We need 1 & 1/4 cup cookie crumbs for this recipe so you can use any cookie of choice.

4- Transfer the cookie crumbs to a bowl and add 3 tablespoons melted butter (slightly cooled) to it.

5- Mix until the cookies crumbs and butter are well mixed together and the mixture resembles wet sand.

6- Lightly grease a 7.5-inch springform pan. Transfer the mixture to the greased pan. Press the cookie crumbs into the pan with the back of a measuring cup or spoon (I used a muddler). It should be tightly packed. Bake the crust at 325 F degrees for 6 minutes. Once baked, remove the pan from the oven and let it chill in the freezer while you work on the filling.

7- To the steel bowl of your stand mixer (or use a hand mixer), add 12 oz cream cheese. It’s very important that the cream cheese is at room temperature. Beat the cream cheese using paddle attachment for 2 minutes until smooth and creamy.

8- Add 3/4 cup granulated white sugar.

9- Beat for 1 minute of medium speed until combined, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.

10- Now, add the following:

• 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon sour cream (95 ml)
• prepared heavy cream and tea mix
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch (25 grams)

11- Mix until everything is well combined and you have a lump-free batter.

12- Take the crust out of the freezer. Wrap it with 2 layers of aluminum foil from the sides and the bottom. We will bake the cheesecake using a water bath (bain marie method) so that it cooks evenly and the layers of aluminum foil prevent any water seeping into the pan as the cheesecake bakes in the oven.

Pour the filling over the crust and spread it out using a spatula. Transfer the pan into a larger rectangular pan. I have used a 13×9-inch pan here. Carefully pour hot water around the pan so that it comes around 1 to 2 inches up to the side of the cake pan.

Bake at 300 F degrees for 45 minutes. When baked completely, it should still jiggle in the middle while the edges look set. Once 45 minutes are up, turn off the oven and let the oven door remain ajar (use a wooden spatula for this) for 10 minutes. Then take the pan out of the oven. Remove the aluminum foil carefully. And let the cheesecake sit on the counter for 30 minutes. Then wrap the cheesecake and chill overnight in the fridge or for a minimum of 6 hours. Drizzle with dulce de leche and serve!

Not Using the Water Bath

If you don’t want to use the water bath to bake this cheesecake, that is fine. You can bake the cheesecake without the water bath as well but there are more chances of it cracking. Also a cheesecake baked with water bath bakes more evenly and turns out smoother and creamier so if you don’t use it, the cheesecake might not come out as smooth.

But all said and done, it’s totally possible and okay to bake this masala chai cheesecake without a water bath.

Cooking In The Instant Pot

You can definitely make this cheesecake in your instant pot. Make a sling with an aluminum foil, refer to the paan cheesecake recipe for the visual. Then add 2 cups of water to the main steel pot of your Instant Pot. Place the pan onto a trivet (I use a tall trivet) and cook on high pressure for 40 minutes.

Let the pressure release naturally. Chill the cheesecake for a minimum of 4 to 6 hours before serving.

Notes & Tips

• You can change the spices as per your preference. Other spices that you can use are ground peppercorns, all spice, even some fennel powder. The combination that I have used in this recipe is the one I think went most well with this recipe.
• This Masala Chai Cheesecake is a great make-ahead dessert. So, if you are making it for thanksgiving or any other holiday party, you can bake this up to 2 days in advance. Keep it refrigerated. Let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and then serve.
• For this recipe, I used biscoff cookies in the crust and I think they go really well here because they are cinnamon flavored anyway. But if you don’t have them, you can use digestives, ginger snaps etc. Whatever cookie you choose, you would need 1&1/4 cup of cookie crumbs for this recipe.
• I like topping this cheesecake with dulce de leche (I used store-bought) but you can just leave it plain as well. You can also top this with whipped cream if you like.

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