Last year I made a cheesecake for my friend Mishka’s birthday. I based the measurements on a recipe for white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake from the Philadelphia website, but changed the ingredients to suit my tastes. I am not a big fan of chocolaty cheesecakes, I think the best cheesecakes are the simplest ones and I find that chocolate overpowers the subtle cheese flavour; if I wanted a chocolate cake then that is what I would make. The furthest I will stretch with embellishments is to use some berries or a squeeze of lemon and some zest.
Since it was a birthday, I wanted to make something special, hence the mascarpone. It would work just as well to substitute extra cream cheese, but the rich and creamy mascarpone does add an extra dimension (and a little sophistication) which is complemented perfectly by the raspberries.
Ingredients
* Please note that a this should not be substituted for a reduced fat version; apart from the fact that it won't taste as good, it is unlikely to set properly
Method
Lightly grease a 20cm springform tin with oil; try to avoid a strong flavoured oil, like extra virgin olive oil, as you will be able to taste the residue on the cheesecake.
Turn the biscuits into crumbs. You can either do this by putting them in a clean tea towel, plastic bag or freezer bag and bashing with a rolling pin or by putting them in a food processor for 30 seconds.
Melt the butter and combine with the biscuit crumbs. Press the biscuit mixture into the base of the tin, spreading as evenly as possible, and put in the fridge to chill while you prepare the cheese mix.
Whip the cream cheese, mascarpone and caster sugar together until smooth; you can do this with an electric mixer or by hand. Add the vanilla essence and gelatine mixture and stir well to combine; if the gelatine is not dissolved properly or not stirred evenly, you will end up with nasty lumps throughout.
Fold in the whipped cream and 150g of the raspberries. If you fold the raspberries in gently you should get a pretty pink and white marbled effect as the juices run from the raspberries. I like to stir it enough to turn the mix a consistent pink colour, as I like the flavour of the raspberries throughout. Either way is fine, it is just a matter of preference.
Pour the cheese and raspberry mixture onto the base you prepared in the tin and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight.
Use the leftover 50g of raspberries to decorate. A little dusting of icing sugar also looks nice.
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Sadly, I don’t have a picture of the cake I made for Mishka, because it was long before I started planning a blog and photographing everything I make and eat. However, as you may have seen/read in my last post, I made mini raspberry and mascarpone cheesecakes for the dinner I did on Saturday.
The nice thing about doing them like this is that you do not need the cheesecake to set and, therefore, you can cut out the gelatine altogether. I do not think I have ever been able to taste gelatine in something, but many people say that they can and do not like it. It also means that it is vegetarian/vegan friendly (not that this is a major concern of mine; thankfully I only know a few vegetarians and they make up for it by being uber-fun and fabulous in every other way).
Another bonus is that the mini cheesecakes don’t need to be prepared so far in advance. In fact, I think they work best the closer to serving time they are made. On Saturday I made the mix earlier in the day because I had to pack it up and take it with me to my friend's house. As a result the juices of the raspberries ran too much. The cheesecakes were still delicious, but the cheese mixture was not as thick and creamy as it could have been. I also cut out the cream on this batch; I am not sure this is entirely necessary, but my inclination, if you want to use cream, would be to fold it in at the last minute, as per the raspberries.
I was speaking to my manager about my plans for the weekend and she said that she too was going to make mini cheesecakes for a dinner she was hosting on the Saturday. She had originally intended to bake them, but decided to try my recipe out instead. She did hers slightly differently; instead of stirring the raspberries into the cheese mix, she pushed them through a sieve and mixed them with a bit of icing sugar to make a couli, which she put on top just before serving. I have not tried her version, but I am sure the contrast of textures works really well. This would also be the best way of optimising the thick and creamy consistency of the cheese mixture.
I made the full recipe on Saturday, which made 7 mini cheesecakes, but it will depend on the size of your ramekins. I would suggest making half the mix for a batch of 4.