Strawberry Cheesecake!

Despite how it looks, this delicious cheesecake is sooo easy to make, which makes it the ideal thing to throw together when your in the mood for showing off! This cheesecake is also a handy one for a planned event, like a meal or party, because you can make it the day beforehand. This can reduce the amount of stress and things that you have to remember to do on the day! I got the recipe for this in transition year, when we did a bit of cooking, but I've made a few changes. For my Dad's birthday, I made it with a layer of raspberry jelly (from joyofbaking.com) over the top but you can leave that part out if you like :P Your going to need a 9 or 10 inch spring baking tin, otherwise you'll have some trouble serving the cheesecake! Just make sure you don't open the clasp on the tray  before the cheesecake is set. You might think that's just common sense but I've seen it done and it wasn't pretty, unless your into floor flavoured cheesecake :P


Ingredients:


Base:

• 225g Digestive biscuits
• 100g Butter

Cheesecake:

• 1 Packet Strawberry Jelly
• 150ml Boiling water
• 450g Cream Cheese (full fat)
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 100ml Milk
• 100ml Whipping Cream

Raspberry Jelly (leave this out if you just want a plain strawberry cheesecake):

• 350g Frozen Raspberries
• 80g Granulated White Sugar
• 1 and a half teaspoons powdered Gelatin (unflavoured)
• 60ml Cold Water

Method:

To start off, put the biscuits into a sealable bag and crush them up into tiny crumbs, make sure there are no big chunks. Then cut up the strawberry jelly and dissolve it in 150 ml of boiling water, leave this to cool. Now, for the Base, melt the butter in a pan and pour in the crushed biscuits. Mix all of this together so that all of the biscuits get covered in melted butter. Put all of this into the cake tin and flatten it down evenly. You want to compact the biscuit layer as much as possible so maybe use a small pot to flatten the mix. Leave this to one side until later.

Next, we'll start on the Cheesecake filling. Put the cream cheese into a mixing bowl and beat it until its nice and smooth. Then, beat in the caster sugar. Add the milk and the dissolved and cooled jelly. Mix the liquids in but you want to try and avoid any lumps so maybe use a hand blender/mixer on a low speed. That said, you don't want too many bubbles either, so do keep it on a low speed. Finally, fold in the cream. Pour this into the cake tin, on top of the prepared crumb base. Pour slowly to avoid air bubbles! Chill in the fridge for a few hours, until completely set.




That's the cheesecake sorted, if you want to stop there. If not, wait a few hours for the cheesecake to set and then start with the Raspberry Jelly!

Put the frozen raspberries and sugar into a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Cover the bowl with tinfoil and heat the berries for  about 40 minutes, when the berries are soft and have released their juices. Remove the bowl from the heat and pour it's contents (the berries and juice) through a fine-meshed strainer suspended over a measuring cup. This parts a bit of a pain in the ass but you need to press the berries through the strainer so that all you have left there are the seeds. You'll need 300ml of seedless raspberry juice so add a bit of water, if necessary.

In another small bowl, soften the gelatin in 60ml of cold water, let this mixture sit for about ten minutes. Heat the raspberry juice until hot, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatin until it has completely dissolved, return the mixture to the heat if necessary. Let the raspberry jelly cool down and then ensure that the cheesecake is totally set. Pour the Jelly onto the cheesecake gently, moving the cake around so that the liquid doesn't burrow a little hole in the cheesecake :L 




Put the cake back into the fridge and leave it in there for as long as possible, I left it overnight and the jelly still wasn't totally set :/ It still tasted great though! You can see from the pictures that it wasn't too runny either :P Serve it up with a dollop of whipped cream or a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy!

Soundtrack to this Recipe!:
Lloyd- Dedication To My Ex
Rizzle Kicks- Mamma Do The Hump