Baked Cheesecake Recipe

Today I decided to present something a little different as my cake recipe of the day, so here is a classic baked cheesecake recipe. This is a citrus cheesecake with an orange filling and a lemon topping.

The twist in this cheesecake is that it's made with soft cheese rather than the more usual cottage cheese, ricotta cheese or mascarpone cheese.

Enjoy.

Baked Cheesecake

Serves: 12

Ingredients:

For the Base:

85g (3 oz) butter, melted
150g (5 oz) digestive biscuits (graham crackers)
1 tbsp caster sugar

For the Filling:

900g (2 lbs) spreadable goat's cheese
275g (10 oz) caster sugar
3 tbsp plain flour
seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
finely-grated zest of 2 oranges
juice of 1 lemon
200ml soured cream

For the Topping:

200ml soured cream
juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp caster sugar (or icing sugar)
a few fresh berries, to garnish

Method:

Blitz the biscuits (crackers) in a food processor until they are broken into fine crumbs. Add the sugar and pulse to mix then pour in the melted butter and blitz once more to mix.

Grease the base of a 23cm (9 in) diameter springform cake tin with baking parchment. Press the biscuit mix into the base and part way up the sides of the tin then sit on a baking tray and transfer to an oven pre-heated to 160ºC (325ºF, Gas Mark 3). Bake for 10 minutes then remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

For the filling, beat the goat's cheese until creamy then whisk in the sugar, flour, vanilla seeds, eggs and egg yolk. Continue beating until smooth then work in the orange zest, lemon juice and soured cream.

Brush the inside edges of the cake tin with melted butter then pour in the cheese mix. Return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 140ºC (285ºF, Gas Mark 1) and cook for a further 40 minutes, or until the cake is set and wobbles when you shake the tin. Turn the oven off at this point and prop the door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to cool in the oven for 2 hours.

After this time prepare the topping. Combine the soured cream with the lemon juice and sugar then pour this mixture over the cooled cheesecake. Cover loosely with foil then set in the refrigerator to chill over night.

The following day, carefully remove the sides of the cake tin. Serve slightly chilled, sliced into wedges and garnished with fresh berries.