Redcurrant cheesecake
One favourite destiny for summer berries is a no-bake cheesecake. Simple to make, it's perfect for parties and lunch outdoors. It looks wonderful with its redcurrant topping, but white or blackcurrants are just as good, if a tad sharper, and so are raspberries or strawberries.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
For the pastry crust
- 250g amaretti biscuits plus 2 Duchy orange biscuits or 2 digestives and fine zest of half a small orange
- 75g butter
- 1 tbsp golden syrup
For the filling
- 50g butter
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- 500g cream cheese
- 125g mascarpone or thick cream
- 450g redcurrants
- Icing sugar for dusting
Method
- First make the crust. Blitz the biscuits in a food processor or place in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin to make coarse crumbs. Melt the butter then stir in the golden syrup. Mix the butter into the crumbs to make a malleable paste. Press the crumbly paste into a 22cm loose-bottomed flan tin or 26cm loose-bottomed tart tin, spreading and pressing up the sides with your fingers. Cover with cling film and chill for at least an hour and up to 24 hours.
- To make the filling, use your food processor or a wooden spoon to cream together 50g/2oz butter with 2 tbsp caster sugar, continuing for several minutes until the mixture is light, fluffy and pale and the sugar hardly distinguishable.
- Beat the cream cheese into the creamed butter then add the mascarpone, beating all the ingredients together until smooth and light. Spread the cream cheese mixture into the chilled tart tin. Use a fork to remove the redcurrants from their stalks and pile them over the filling. Dust generously with icing sugar. Stand the tart on a can or similar to remove the collar and stand back for oohs and ahs.
Please note: the image above is for decorative purposes only and is not an original photograph of the dish described.
This recipe first appeared in the July 2008 edition of Saga Magazine.
Lindsey Bareham's website is: www.lindseybareham.com