Honey Walnut Cheesecake
Featuring a warm honey walnut topping on top of a classic cheesecake, a slice of this Honey Walnut Cheesecake is a great way to end the day!
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I’ve always found maple syrup to be fascinating. It truly is “nature’s candy!” This Maple Pecan Pound Cake is a household favorite, and I shared some fun facts about maple syrup and how it’s made in that post. As I sat down to write the post for this delicious Honey Walnut Cheesecake, it hit me…I actually don’t know that much about honey.
That thought led to googling…and more googling. An hour (and several internet rabbit holes later), I now know a lot more about honey! Sure, I know bees make honey. And I know honey is delicious when stirred into tea or spread onto toast. But that was about it.
Did you know that to make one pound of honey, the bees in a colony travel a total of 55,000 miles!? And making that one pound of honey will be the entire life’s work for 768 bees. (A single honeybee only makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. 1/12 of a teaspoon!)
Honey also never spoils. Yes, jars of honey usually include an expiration date – but that’s only because of FDA requirements. Honey never actually spoils. The “worst” thing that will happen is the honey will crystalize, but crystalized honey is perfectly fine to eat. It’s basically ‘honey candy’ at that point!
In fact, honey was found in King Tut’s tomb, and it was still edible. King Tut died in 1323 BC…so that honey was ~3,500 years old. And it was still edible. Crazy! Would I want to eat that honey? I’ll have to think about that a bit longer…but I find it fascinating that the honey was edible.
Honey Walnut Cheesecake
While honey might last 3,500 years, I can assure you that this Honey Walnut Cheesecake will not! At some point, it would certainly spoil – but I have no idea at what point that would happen. This cheesecake didn’t even come close to lasting long enough to answer that question!
Honey walnut cream cheese is delicious, so it stands to reason that a cheesecake made with the same flavors would be delicious, too, right?
For this tasty cheesecake, I kept it really simple. I started with my go-to cheesecake recipe. No additional ingredients except for a handful of chopped walnuts. (If you’re looking for an awesome cheesecake recipe, this is a good one! I’ve used this cheesecake as the base for all sorts of variations…but it’s pretty darned tasty just by itself.)
Once that cheesecake was baked, I moved it into the fridge and let it chill overnight. The next day, I came back and topped the baked cheesecake with a warm honey + walnut mixture. You could absolutely serve this cheesecake just like that, but I opted to refrigerate it again so that the honey topping was chilled. Either version would be fantastic!
Now that you are armed with some fun facts about honey, I say put this Honey Walnut Cheesecake on the baking agenda. It’s one heck of a delicious cheesecake, and it’s safe to say that we’ll be making this one again here in our house. Happy baking!
Did you make this Honey Cheesecake Cheesecake? Leave a comment, or snap a photo and tag me on Instagram (@Spicedblog) – I’d love to see your version!
Honey Walnut Cheesecake
Ingredients
For the Crust
- 2¼ cups vanilla wafer crumbs ~60 vanilla wafers (can use graham cracker crumbs instead)
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
For the Cheesecake
- 32 oz. cream cheese room temperature
- 1¼ cups granulated sugar
- 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 4 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
For the Honey Walnut Topping
- ½ cup honey
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 Tbsp water
- 1½ cup chopped walnuts
Instructions
For the Crust
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease and flour a 9” springform pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper; set pan aside.
- Using a medium mixing bowl, add vanilla wafer crumbs, brown sugar and melted butter; stir until well combined.
- Transfer mixture into prepared pan; press crumbs into bottom and sides of pan. (Tip: A flat bottomed glass is helpful for this step.)
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove pan from oven and let cool.
- Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.
For the Cheesecake
- Using a countertop mixer, beat the cream cheese on medium speed until completely smooth (~3 minutes).
- Add sugar and flour; mix on medium speed until well combined.
- Using a separate bowl, whisk eggs and additional egg yolks together. Add this egg mixture to the mixing bowl in 2 additions, mixing fully on low speed after each addition.
- Add the sour cream, vanilla and chopped walnuts; mix on medium speed until well combined. (Tip: Use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure the filling is fully mixed.)
- Pour the cheesecake batter into the pan with the baked crust.
- Wrap the bottom of the pan with a piece of aluminum foil and place in a large baking pan. Fill pan with ~½” of water. Bake at 325°F until center of cake is just barely set (~70-80 minutes). (Tip: Pull the cheesecake out of the oven when there is about 1″ ring of “looser” filling left in the center of the cake.)
- Remove cake from oven and carefully run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen. Let cool in pan for 1 hour.
- Cover pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze overnight.
For the Honey Walnut Topping
- Using a small saucepan, add honey, butter and water; place over medium heat. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring often.
- Add walnuts and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring often. (Note: Mixture will be thin.)
- Spoon mixture on top of cheesecake.
- Remove springform pan and slice cheesecake.
Looking for more tasty cheesecake recipes? Check out these other favorites, too:
Cant wait to make this soon for me for the crust can i use vegan butter / cheesecake can i use vegan cream cheese and coconut cream and topping can i use vegan butter i never had honey walnut cheesecake before perfect for my after office snacks love your recipes as always brightens up my day everyday after work
Hey Ramya! I can’t speak to the vegan substitutions here as I haven’t baked this cheesecake with vegan ingredients. I would imagine they would work well, but you’ll have to let me know if you try it out!
Incredible factoids. I never knew any of this either. Beautiful cheesecake.
Thanks so much, Mimi! And I’m with ya on honey – so many interesting facts to know and share! 🙂
This Honey Walnut Cheesecake looks absolutely delicious and I’m definitely going to try making it myself. It was really interesting to learn about the fascinating facts about honey too, I never knew some of them 😁
Thanks so much, Raymund! This cheesecake is absolutely fantastic, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 🙂
The cheesecake looks so good with that combination of honey and walnut — I knew that honey doesn’t go bad, but not sure if I would eat the one that is 3500 years old!! I’ll tell you what though, I’ll definitely eat this cheesecake!
I’m with ya, Michelle – this cheesecake didn’t stand a chance around here! That honey + walnut topping? Amazing! And then add in the creamy cheesecake? This is definitely a dessert that I plan on making again…soon!
I’m lactose-intolerant so i don’t eat cheesecake but the topping looks wonderful. there are several people in our neighbourhood who have bees so it’s fab to buy the real stuff!
That’s so awesome that you have neighbors who keep bees – I’ve always thought that would be fun, but Laura gives me “that look” whenever I say that! 🙂
Look at this stunning cheesecake! So rich, so silky, so smooth – perfection! (I’ve recently made a cheesecake – also with nuts – but despite being delicious, its edges and cuts weren’t as clean and perfect as you have here. I am jealous lol.)
I am a huge fan of everything with nuts, particularly caramelized nuts, so I am in. I made a similar one with maple syrup a few years ago, and I need to try the variation with honey, too.
Ah, the clean cut edges on cheesecake? That’s a trick I learn in baking classes years ago…freeze the entire thing overnight. Yup, it turns into a giant frozen brick, but you can get nice clean slices. You’ll just need to let the slices thaw for about an hour or so, but that’s not a big deal. Give it a try!
Thanks for all those interesting honey and beef facts. I had no idea it took that many bees to make honey! I do know load about honey crystalization, though, since I think that ever jar of honey I’ve ever purchased has crystalized. I love the color of honey, and when I go to buy it, I can’t resist buying it it big, glass jars. (Actually, I’ve more recenty taken to bringing my own jars to a local farmers market, and filling them up from the bulk honey vat.) Anyway, I eat so little of it, that it eventually crystalizes. For some reason, though, I had forgotten how good it is on buttered toast! And I eat toast all the time. Problem solved. I just hope there’s some leftover for this cheesecake. You are certainly the king of cheesecakes! I bet the honey flavor is a great combo for the cake.
I’m with ya, Jeff. We seem to go through spurts when it comes to honey. We’ll use a bunch, and then it ends up sitting in the pantry for a while…and inevitably it ends up crystallizing at the bottom. Honey candy!! 🙂 This cheesecake though? Make it. Seriously. It’s one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever made!