It's been a huge month of FOOD! Shortbread galore, rumballs aplenty, wine, seafood, ham, turkey, desserts... CHRISTMAS! I've been in a food coma since late November.
Although I'm on Day 2 of the 'Holy Crap My Work Pants Barely Fit Diet', I'm excited to share a recipe with you that is decidedly unfriendly to New Years Resolutions, unless yours is to eat more cheesecake, and if so, cheers to you!
That was a long sentence. My Grade 8 English teacher would wallop me.
Cheesecake.
It's a very dear friend's birthday this week. This calls for baking. I've whipped her up some cakes over the last few years, but I'm particularly excited about this one. There is something so very decadent about putting things in cheesecake. Chopping up the white chocolate, mixing in the tart berries...so good.
Gratuitous photo of raspberries. Fancy!
White Chocolate and Raspberry Baked Cheesecake
Ingredients:
250g plain sweet biscuits (I used shredded oatmeal)
100g almond meal (any nut meal will work)
150g melted butter (unsalted may work better here, mine tasted a little salty)
750g cream cheese at room temperature
2/3 cup caster sugar
1-2 tsp vanilla bean paste (Queens is excellent, can be subsituted for a scraped vanilla bean)
3 eggs
180g of good quality white chocolate, finely chopped (I used Plaistowe)
150g frozen raspberries
Icing sugar and fresh raspberries to decorate
Method:
Grease a 20cm base springform or silicon pan. Blitz the biscuits in a food processor or bash the bejeezus out of them with a rolling pin in a snap bag until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add in the meal and butter, blitz and then press in to the pan with your fingers. It you just want the base covered, 250g of biscuits should do it. If you like yours thick and up the sides, I'd say double the base recipe for good luck!
Cover and fridge that bad boy for half an hour.
PS: you can make this gluten free by choosing gluten free biscuits in the health food aisle. Genius!
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celsius.
Use an electric hand or bench mixer to whip up the cream cheese with sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs in one at a time until nicely whipped up and combined. Use a spoon/spatula to gently fold in the white chocolate and raspberries. Take a photo during this process and post it to Instagram to make your friends drool.
Exhibit A.
Pour the cheesecake filling into the chilled base and place in the oven. Watch that it's not too close to the top, as mine coloured too much from this very issue! Boo!
Cheesecake about to go in to the oven.
It can take anywhere from 40 minutes to 60 minutes to cook, depending on your oven. When it is just set in the middle, turn the oven off, leave the door ajar and let the thing cool for two hours. I did mine last night and it wasn't done until 9:30pm, so I set an alarm for 11:30 and went to bed! Ha!
Refrigerate until cool, or overnight. I recommend freezing for 20 minutes or so before attempting cheesecake-from-tin-removal in order to avoid a snapped-in-half-cheesecake disaster.
Dust with icing sugar, decorate with fresh raspberries, drizzle with white chocolate, serve with dollop cream, do whatever you want to do to this baby, it's a winner!