CLASSIC BAKED CHEESECAKE

Smooth, silky, sweet with a tang. A cheesecake is one of the easiest desserts you can make to feed a crowd and prepare well and truly in advance.

INGREDIENTS:

- 700g Cream Cheese

- 200ml Thickened Cream

- 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk

- 100g brown sugar

- 30g maple syrup

- 2tbs tapioca starch

- 1/2 a lemon

- 1tsp salt

- 1tbs vanilla extract

For the crust:

- 150g butter

- pinch of salt

- 400g biscuit of your choice

METHOD:

You will need to make the cheesecake the day before or in the morning of the night you're planning to serve it.

Place the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract, maple syrup and salt in a bowl of a mixer and beat on low speed with a paddle until smooth. Do not beat on high speed to avoid putting too much air into the mix.

Add the cream and eggs and mix to combine making sure you're scraping the bottom to end up with a smooth lump free mix.

Sift the tapioca starch and squeeze the juice of the half lemon into the mix and mix to finish.

In a blender or food processor, add your biscuits and salt and blend into crumbs.

Melt the butter and mix it into the crumbs.

NOTE: The easiest way to get a cheesecake out of its tin is using a springform cake tin; BUT if you don't have one, don't stress. Simply line a regular cake tin with baking paper cutting out a circle for the base and 1 or 2 rectangle to go all around the sides of the tin. I still recommend doing this with the spring form tin as well to make your life even easier.

Pour out the buttery crumbs onto the lined tin you're using and using your fingers press the crumbs into the base and sides of the tin to form a crust. Put this in the fridge for 5 minutes to harden a little.

Preheat the oven to 170C and place a separate tin or oven proof dish filled with water in the oven.

Pour the cream mix into the crumbed tin and bake for 30minutes.

Without opening the oven door, lower the temperature to 150C and bake for another 30 minutes.

Now with the cheesecake still in the oven, turn the oven off and let the cheesecake cool down inside the oven for another hour.

Pull the cheesecake out of the oven, let it cool down on your bench for another 30 minutes or so then place in your fridge for minimum 6 hours, but ideally overnight.

The cheesecake is now ready to be served with whatever topping you like!

CHANGE IT UP!

Crust: You can use chocolate cookies, digestives, Oreos, gingersnaps, shortbread, butternut snap biscuits, really anything biscuit you like to make the crust. You may just have to adjust the amount of butter you use depending on the biscuit but even if you don't I guarantee it will still be delicious.

Topping: Top your cheese cake with whatever you like! Here are some ideas:

- caramel

- chocolate ganache

- fresh berries

- berry coulis

- plain is also just as good!