Friday 8 April 2011

Easy, delicious white chocolate cheesecake


Sticking with the white chocolate theme, this is simply the best cheesecake! It's so easy to make (well, relatively easy), and is certainly a favourite of mine. I found it by accident, in a newspaper or magazine one day several years ago. It's a great special occasion, or dinner party dessert. But really, you don't need an excuse!

The recipe says it will keep for up to a week in the fridge, though you would be doing well to resist for that long! However, you do need to make it the day before so it's well chilled when you want to eat it. I top with whatever I have: chopped fruit; tinned fruit; chocolate shavings; passionfruit syrup is particularly delicious.

Due to popular demand, I will start posting recipes as well, so here goes for the cheesecake:

450g cream cheese
1/4 cup caster sugar
3 t cornflour
3 eggs
1 t vanilla essence
3 t finely grated lemon zest
1 1/2 T lemon juice
2 cups sour cream
1 cup cream
220g white chocolate, melted and cooled to lukewarm

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease a 20cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Wrap the outside tightly in a double layer of foil.

Whiz cheese and sugar in a food processor for 30 seconds until smooth. (I don't have a food processor, so I use my hand beater and just make sure it's really well mixed). Keep the motor or beater going, and add the cornflour, then eggs one at a time, stopping every now and again to scrape down the sides. Add vanilla, zest, juice, creams and 1/4 t salt, and process until just combined scraping down the sides. Add chocolate and pulse until smooth. Pour into tin and sit in a large baking dish. Pour hot water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the tin. Bake for 45 minutes and then leave in the switched-off oven (door closed) for 1 hour. Remove the tin from the dish, remove the foil and cool the cake in the tin on a rack. Cover and chill overnight.

To turn it out, sit the tin on a hot damp towel to loosen the base. Run a palette knife around the edge of the tin, then invert onto a serving plate. Decorate and slice with a hot knife.

Enjoy!!!

7 comments:

  1. We are going to have to do a taste testing one day so we can rank the recipes

    ReplyDelete
  2. so what are we expecting to be put on for your flat warming next weekend?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Please teach Mel these recipes

    ReplyDelete
  4. I cooked this cheesecake last night. I think I underbaked it a bit as it was kinda mousse-like, but it's certainly delicious :) (I burnt my first batch of chocolate too, disasterous!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Can you do it without the lemon juice and rind? or what can you use in its place for someone with a citrus allergy?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I would suggest perhaps pineapple juice. The lemon juice and rind adds some acidity to a really rich cake, pineapple juice would be a good substitute. But, you could add your favourite fruit juice, depending on what you like - mango, apple or passionfruit would also be delicious.

    ReplyDelete