Cheesecake Riot

Cheesecakes are probably the best way of moving cheese out of your refrigerator once made. That’s actually an excuse to make the easiest and probably tastiest dessert ever.
Continuing with the fascination for cheese, last week was cream cheese time. The fact that you have an even 1:1 milk to cream kind of puts me off at times, but the finished product can always be paired with fresh bagels which makes the excuse to make the cheese all the more appealing.
The recipe for cream cheese is available at Fankhauser’s page and is very easy if you have the rennet. What I have found is that if you make the cake almost immediately after draining the cheese, without refrigerating it, you get an amazing consistency. Here is the recipe I used

Crust
1 packet (around 30) biscuits – I use non-flavoured. Marie is the best
150gms chilled butter, chopped into rough cubes
¼ cup sugar

Filling
400gms fresh cream cheese
1 ½ cups sugar (normal is fine)
½ cup coffee liquor (replace with appropriate vanilla essence if you like)
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Glaze
300g strawberries washed and roughly chopped
Sugar as desired (I didn’t measure this, adjust to your level of sweetness)

Process

1. Preheat the oven to 160C
2. Start with making the biscuit base of the cake. Crush the biscuits (don’t powder em) and add the butter and sugar to make a rough biscuit-like dough.
3. Use a spring-form pan and pat down the mixture so it forms a base.
4. Bake for 20mts making sure the crust does not get burnt
5. Remove from oven and let cool
6. Beat the cream cheese on your lowest setting of your hand mixer (invest in one, its worth it) till the cheese is smooth and no lumps remain
7. Add in the rest of the ingredients and beat on ‘mix’ till you get a thick ‘liquidy’ texture – kind of like cake batter.
8. Place the mix in the oven turned up to 170C and bake for 30mts or till the mixture has set.
9. Remove from the oven and let it get to room temperature. I’d put it out for at least 3-4hrs so the insides have cooled as well. Figured this out the hard way this time with the cake breaking apart when in the refrigerator
10. Chill in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours
11. Serve cold with the fresh strawberry glaze


Strawberry Glaze
Cook the strawberries with enough sugar and water to form a syrupy mix. Cool this down to room temperature and pour it over the cheesecake when serving.