RECIPE
Equipment needed : 18 cm diameter cake tin with removable base x 6 cm depth
Biscuit Base
340 g Biscoff biscuits / store bought Digestive biscuits
125 g Unsalted Butter
Cheesecake filling
500 g Cream Cheese
150 g Castor Sugar
1 u Zest of Lemon
1/2 u Juice of lemon
150 g/ 3 u Whole eggs
2 tablespoon Plain Flour
Method:
1. Start by preparing the cheesecake biscuit base. Place the biscoff biscuits in a food processor and process until it turns in to fine crumbs.
(If you want to make the cookie yourself, visit my page on "Biscoff Cookie" using 1/2 of the recipe). Simply roll the cookie dough in to a sheet and bake at 170°C for 15 minutes or until it turns golden in color.)
Meanwhile, melt the unsalted butter and leave to slightly cool.
2. Transfer the biscuits crumbs into a bowl, stir in the cooled melted butter until well combined.
Make sure that the butter is cool or the base can get quite greasy.
3. Pour into a non stick 18 cm cake tin and gently press the crumbs down and on to the sides, try to compact them as much as possible so that they do not fall apart after baking. Make sure that the top of the edges are as even as possible.
Rest the baking tin lined with cookie crumb base in the fridge until the base slightly stiffens up.
4. To prepare the cream cheese filling, make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature beforehand.
Place the cream cheese in a stand mixer bowl attached with a paddle attachment. Always on low speed, mix the cream cheese, vanilla bean paste with castor sugar until smooth. Then add in the the eggs one at a time, mix until smooth before adding the next egg.
Make sure that you scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl frequently to ensure that there are no large chunks of cream cheese in the mix.
Note: Mixing on low speed will ensure that you do not incorporate too much air into the mix which can cause the cheesecake to rise too much and crack during baking.
5. Add the lemon juice mix, then the sifted flour and mix until smooth.
6. If there are large lumpy bits in your cream cheese fillings, simply pass the fillings through a fine sieve, then add in the Lemon Zest.
7. Fill the cream cheese fillings into the biscuit base. if the sides of your biscuits case are too high, simply with the help of your fingers, gently press down to adjust the heights but ensure that there is at least 0.5 - 1 cm gap between the fillings and the height of the biscuit base on the sides as the filling will rise slightly during baking and then sink back down after baking.
You want the borders of the biscuit casings to be slightly higher than the level of the cheesecake filling.
8. Bake the cheesecake in the oven at 150°C for 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes or until the center feels firm. Turn the oven heat off with the oven door still close, leaving the cheesecake to cool in the warm oven for 2 hours.
9. Remove the cheesecake from the oven, then let it rest in the fridge overnight.
The next day, top the cheesecake with strawberries, dust with snow sugar and serve!
The cheesecake is best served when it is completely chilled.
To prepare the base
