puddings |

My first attempt at a cheescake and it was absolutely delicious!! Thank you Lorraine Pascale for this easy recipe. We don’t really eat desserts in our house unless we’re cooking for family and friends but I really enjoyed this and would happily make it again. I added a punnet of blueberries to the top of my cheescake but I imagine you could add any berry you like. I thought it looked a bit prettier and the flavour of the blueberry complimented the vanilla nicely.

I did halve this recipe and used a smaller tin as I was only feeding four people. It wasn’t as thick or doorstop like as it should have been but there was still plenty leftover.

Prep time: 20 minutes
Chilling time: 30 minutes in the freezer (or 4 hours in the fridge)

SERVES 12

75g (3oz) butter

250g (9oz) digestive biscuits

2 tbsp soft light brown sugar

800g (1 ¾ lb) full-fat cream cheese (half-fat just does not hold)

1 lemon

1 vanilla pod (or few drops of vanilla extract to taste)

800ml (1 1/3 pt) fridge-cold double cream

75g (3oz) icing sugar

You will need a 23cm springform cake tin at least 8cm deep (9 in x 3 ¼ in).

Put the butter in a large pan over a low heat and leave to melt. Place the digestive biscuits in a plastic food bag, seal it up and bash them with a rolling pin to give fine crumbs. It’s also quicker and easier to blitz them in a food processor if you have one.

Tip the crushed biscuits into the now-melted butter, add the soft light brown sugar and mix together well. Then evenly squidge the mixture into the bottom of the cake tin, really packing it in tight by pressing it down with your hand or the back of a spoon. Place in the fridge to firm up while you make the topping. Put the cream cheese in a large bowl and finely grate the zest over. Halve the vanilla pod, scrape out the seeds and add them (or the vanilla extract) too. Mix together well to loosen the mixture slightly.

Pour the double cream into a large bowl and sift in the icing sugar. Whisk it, by hand or with a hand-held electric whisk, to almost the same consistency as the cream cheese, just a little looser. Then tip the cream into the cream cheese mixture and mix everything gently, with as few stirs as possible. Tip it onto the biscuit base and smooth the top with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula.

Cover with cling film and put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes until just set. You can of course set this in the fridge, but it will take considerably longer (about 4 hours). Handy to know if making in advance, though obviously you wouldn’t want to leave it in the freezer for too long!

Remove the cheesecake from the fridge/freezer 10 minutes or so before serving to bring to room temperature a bit (but don’t leave it out for too long as it will go too soft).

Serve and enjoy.