I love all types of cheesecakes, but the baked cheesecake is by far my most favorite. Its got that creamy, melt-in-the mouth texture that makes me tingle with happiness when it reaches my palette. This cake needs to be made a day in advance for the best results. I made this for my father-in-law’s 60th.
Ingredients for the cake:
- 110 grams of melted butter
- 300 grams of digestive biscuits
- 500 grams of Philadelphia cream cheese
- 200 grams of caster sugar
- 1 tbsp of cornflour
- 3 eggs
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon
- seeds from 1 vanilla pod
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup greek yoghurt
Ingredients for the icing:
- 220 grams of dark chocolate
- 120 ml of thickening cream
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degree celsius.
- Cut a round piece of baking paper to fit the bottom of a 22 x 6 cm deep spring-form tin. *make sure the baking paper is cut a little bigger than the base of the baking tin so that it makes it easier to slide off when the time comes to remove the baking paper.
- Sit the base in place and lock the sides of the spring-form tin. Place the baking paper firmly at the base of the baking tin.
- Brush the melted butter on the baking paper as well as on the sides of the baking tin.
- Tear off some foil and sit the tin on top of the foil.
- Wrap the foil upwards and around the tin firmly. This is to ensure that no water gets into the tin whilst baking in a dish of water.
- Put the digestive biscuits in a strong plastic bag. Use a rolling pin to crush the biscuits its all crumbly.
- Put the biscuit crumbs into the spring-form tin and pour the melted butter over the top of the biscuit crumbs.
- Toss the butter and crumbs with your fingers and then press firmly down onto the pan.
- Grab a glass and using its base, press the mixture down firm to form an even, flat biscuit base for the cheesecake.
- Wrap your finger with a tissue paper and dampen it with some water.
- Run your finger along the side of the tin to ensure that there are no biscuit crumbs stuck on the sides.
- Place the cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer till a smooth mixture is formed.
- Beat in the corn flour and eggs till combined. (make sure you do not over beat the mixture a s this could cause the cake to sink when baked.)
- Add the lemon juice, vanilla, salt, sour cream and yoghurt and beat till combined.
- Pour the cream cheese mixture into the spring-form tin with the biscuit crust at the bottom.
- Place the tin in a larger baking tin filled with water. The water level should come up halfway up the sides of the spring-form tin.
- Bake in the oven for 50 mins and then turn the oven off, leaving the cake in the closed oven for another hour.
- Remove the cake from the oven and lift away from the water bath.
- Remove the foil from the tin and allow the cake to cool completely on a cooling rack.
- Do not remove the cake from the spring-form tin.
- Place the cake in an airtight container or cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to set overnight.
- The next day, unlock the spring-form tin and carefully slide the cake onto a large serving plate.
- At this stage, you can choose to serve the cheesecake as it is or make it even more decadent by icing with the dark chocolate cream icing.
- To make the dark chocolate cream icing, put the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and place in the microwave for 1 minute.
- Give the chocolate a stir to see if its completely melted after a minute. If not, put back in the microwave for another 30 seconds. Keep doing this till the chocolate is melted. It normally take a total of 2 minutes in my microwave to get the chocolate melted.
- Slowly pour the cream over the chocolate and stir vigorously till a smooth shiny mixture is formed.
- Pour the mixture of the top of the cheese cake, allowing the excess chocolate to drip down the sides.
- You can pipe celebratory wordings using white chocolate on the cake if its a special occasion such as a birthday or an anniversary. Otherwise you can leave it as it is.
- Place the cake in the fridge for another hour or so to allow the icing set.
- The cake is now ready to be served.
Oh what a beauty in the new hat and uniform! Look after those feet! Your blog is very interesting and well done. The recipes will be of great value later. Jason is a lucky guy. XO