Advent 17 - Cheesecake: sheer indulgence

December 17th

Photo by Syd Spence - thank you Syd

Luke 2:13-14

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

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Well, we’re having a bit of a cheesey week and I thought you would enjoy this absolutely gorgeous cheesecake recipe.

Ingredients 

Base

4oz (115 gm) Digestive biscuits

4 oz (115 gm) Gingernut biscuits

4 oz (115 gm) butter

1 tablespoon of golden syrup

Filling

10-12 floz double cream (about ½ pint)

4oz(115 gm)  cream cheese

Juice of ½ a lemon
5 oz (140 gm) sieved icing sugar

Ideally, you’ll need a round, 8 inch (that’s 21½ cms or 215 mm) loose-bottomed cake tin which you should lightly grease.  

Weigh out 4 oz(110 gm) of each of the biscuits – 8 oz (225 gm) in total, and crush them. You can put them into a plastic bag and give them a good bashing with a rolling pin (very therapeutic) or whizz them in a food-processor.

Next, melt 4 oz (110 gm) butter in a saucepan with a tablespoon of golden syrup. When these are nicely runny, pour in the crushed biscuits and stir thoroughly.  Put the biscuit mix into the cake tin and press it down into place.  Pop into the fridge and leave whilst you make the filling.

Pour a 10 floz(300 ml) carton of double cream into a bowl (that’s half-a-pint) and whip it until it’s really thick – don’t over-do it though or you’ll end up with butter.  Put this on one side. 

In another, large bowl, put 4 oz(110 gm) cream cheese and squeeze in the juice from half a lemon and mix them together.  Weigh out 5 oz (140 gm) icing sugar and sieve it into the cheese mix.  Stir thoroughly and then add the whipped cream and stir that in too.

Take the cake-tin from the fridge and put the mixture on top of the biscuit base.  Leave in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

You can add flavouring to the mix, for example, Baileys Cream, Tia Maria.  When you remove the cheesecake from the fridge and put it onto a serving plate, you can add a topping of your choice, for example, chocolate - crumble a Flake as we did with the Lemon Fridge Cake, or fresh strawberries, cherries in Kirsch, there’s so much choice.

Enjoy the indulgence of this cheesecake.

For more Advent recipes, Christmas fun facts and the Nativity story, just click here