December 15, 2011

Sweet baby cheeses

In November I made my first ever cheesecake. I had thought it would be as tricky as rocket science but it turned out to be a sinch, especially as you can buy cheesecake filling ready made.

So I made another one. This one is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe, and rounded out a gorgeous meal of salads and barbecued sausages and haloumi with my fellow featurettes and feature-fellas.

It looked like this:

Here's how I did it.
I took 500g of frozen berries out of the freezer and let them thaw.
I took a packet of wine biscuits and 150g of melted butter and whizzed them together in the food processor until the biscuits were fine crumbs and the butter was worked through it.
I took a 23cm springform pan, greased it with butter, and spooned the biscuit butter mix into it, then smoothed it down to form the base. I put that in the fridge for an hour.
Then I got a mixing bowl and added 500g of cream cheese, about 150g of creme fraiche, a splash of vanilla essence, 120g caster sugar, the zest and juice of a lemon and whisked the blazes out of it until it was all creamy and velvety and could be eaten straight off the whisk.
When the base had set in the fridge, I spooned the cheesy filling onto it and popped it back in the fridge.
Just before serving, I took the frozen berries and 100g of caster sugar and warmed them on the stove so the sugar was melted through it. I slathered that on top.
So, so good.

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