(Almost) According to Hummingbird: New York Cheesecake

Normally, when I make a cheesecake, I use a no-bake recipe which involves very little weighing. A tub of cream cheese, a pot of double cream, icing sugar to taste, beat it together. It’s simple, effective, and lends itself to whatever you’ve got in the kitchen-cupboard by way of flavourings. Lemon, chocolate, alcohol.

This time, though, in the spirit of lockdown-kitchen experiments, I had a go at a baked cheesecake. I had three eggs already, so I adjusted the other quantities to suit, near enough, and stirred in some frozen berries. To be fair, Hummingbird does suggest this as well, and since I was making this as a breakfast cheesecake, I thought it’d be a good idea.

Honestly, after this, I can see why people go to the effort of baked cheesecakes. So silky smooth and delicious!

Ingredients:

Top

900g cream cheese

190g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

[blueberries and raspberries]

Base

I’m not going to lie: Hummingbird want you to make essentially biscuit dough and blind-bake the base. I took the easy option…

1 packet of digestive biscuits (approx. 400g – depending on how thick you want the base)

Chunk of butter, approx. 75 g (I’m afraid I just cut a wodge off)

Method:

Start with the base: bash the biscuits into fine crumbs. Melt the butter and stir into the crumbs. Press into a cake tin and leave to cool.

For the topping: mix together the cream cheese, caster sugar and vanilla essence. Add the eggs one at a time, being careful not to overmix. It was at this point that I added the berries.

Place the tin in another deep baking tray and fill the outside tray with water to two-thirds. Bake at 150C/gas mark for 30-40 minutes. It should be a bit brown on top and still wobbly in the middle. Remove from water-tray and leave to cool for a while before putting in the fridge to set overnight.

Serve for breakfast.