Here’s a delicious cheesecake that’s easy to make and a little “different”.
First, let me explain “semi-baked”: I baked the base, but even that could be avoided if you chose to put it in the fridge instead to set. (“Semi-baked” isn’t the most wonderful title, but a lot better than “half baked”.)
Here’s how this cheesecake “happened”. It was a couple of days before our weekly supermarket trip. We still had various food items that needed to be used, including a tub of mascarpone, half a tub of cream cheese, half a jar of lemon curd, three bananas and a couple of lemons. I wanted to create some fridge and kitchen space, so a cheesecake was the obvious answer.
I wanted to make it for a friend who can’t have gluten, so digestive biscuits for the base were out. What about oats, I thought. Better still, I had some oat bran and some Polenta. I’d never used these for a base before, but they were fine and I’ll use them again.
Serves: 10 – 12 pieces, depending how hungry or greedy everyone is
Time: 45 minutes hands on + fridge time
Level: Fairly easy, but be prepared to be adaptable
Equipment: A loose bottomed 20cm/8” round cake tin + acetate strips to line the inside. (Grease the tin lightly and line the base with baking parchment)
Oven temperature: 200C / fan 180C / 400F/ Gas 6
Rather than a list of ingredients followed by step-by-step instructions I’ve combined them and used blue for ingredients and purple for the instructions. I hope that’s OK.
The Base
- 75g/2.5oz butter
- A 300g/10oz – 350g/12oz mixture of the following ingredients, combined as you choose: oats, oatmeal or oat bran, polenta, ground almonds.
(These all enable you to make it gluten free. If gluten isn’t an issue you could simply use crushed digestives or other biscuits or Graham Crackers in US.)
- 50g/1.75oz caster sugar
- 30g/1oz golden syrup
1. Mix together your chosen dry ingredients.
2. Melt the butter and golden syrup then pour over the dry mixture and mix.
3. Push firmly into base of 20cm/8″ tin and bake for about 15 minutes. Set aside to cool. (or you could just put it in the fridge to set it. I prefer baking it.)
The Cheesecake “body”
Again, you have choices. I suggest you aim for an 800g – 900g (1.75lb – 2lb) mixture of the following items:
- 250g – 400g (9oz – 14oz) Mascarpone or full fat cream cheese
- 200g – 250g (9oz – 14oz) bananas, mashed (I used three medium bananas*)
- 50ml – 100ml (1.75fl oz – 3.5fl oz) double cream (US: Heavy cream)
- 150g – 200g(5.5oz – 7oz) icing sugar
*If your bananas aren’t soft, stab them a few times with a fork and give them a few short blasts in the microwave. Be careful when you peel them, they’ll be hot and maybe steamy.
4. Mix and beat all the above together then add 1 tsp vanilla extract
5. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon + lemon zest
- 125g/4.5oz lemon curd or half a jar
6. Either mix the lemon curd into the main mixture or save it to pipe or swirl onto the top of the finished cheesecake. (To be honest, I meant to mix it in but forgot, so I piped it on top, which was OK – your choice again.)
- Acetate strips
7. Line the cake tin inside with acetate strips and spoon the filling into it. Level it then place cheesecake in fridge for at least 3 hours to firm up. Remove from fridge and carefully take off the tin and acetate strips. If you haven’t already used the lemon curd you could pipe it on now, or dust the cheesecake with icing sugar.
The friend who I made it for sent me this message the following day: “Good morning Ian many thanks for the cheesecake. Definitely one of your best bakes yet. The base was delicious, the filling was delicious, all in all amazing.” Later she added: “It was set perfect.”
I hope this unconventional recipe was OK – let me know if not, please. I also, hope you make the cheesecake. If you do, I’d definitely like to know how you got on with it.
Some more conventional (and tasty) cheesecake recipes click here. Some of my personal favourites that I’d love you to try are these:
Chocolate and Orange Cheesecake
White Chocolate and Blueberry Cheesecake.
Please have a look at my site for lots of other recipes, sweet and savoury. If you’d like to comment or ask a question, that’s great. Just go to the contact page.
Retired Bloke on Food n stuff 