Lemon (& strawberry?) cheesecake

Its been a while since my first post.

The business that is still bugging me like crazy got mad busy before Christmas. 

But now that is all put of the way, I'm here and keen to get this food blog really going. 

I sent my sister a recipe for a pumpkin bruschetta I kind of thought of myself and wasn't entirely happy with, and she did fix it a bit, but I think it needs a little more attention from both of us. 

In the mean time she sent me a few recipes, including one for a lemon cheesecake. I ran into a bunch of trouble making it....

Lemon cheesecake

Crust

2/3 roll of 'Bastogne biscuits' *

Half roll of digestives

125 grams of butter (1 stick) - melted 

Cake tin (24 cm diameter)

Baking paper 

* Bastogne biscuits are delicious, but i have never seen them outside of belgium or the Netherlands, and so.... Digestive biscuits will have to do, so use 350 gram of Digestive biscuits.

Use the bottom of your baking tin to trace around a circle on the baking paper. Cut out the circle and place inside the baking tin. 

Crush the biscuits (I beat them up with a rolling pin) 

Mix the melted butter with the crushed biscuits. 

Put the mix into the tin, push down and let set in the fridge while you do the next steps. 

Lemon filling 

500 gram of cream cheese

375 ml whipping cream 

125 gr caster suiker

1 vanilla seedpod - split and remove the seeds. 

Zest and juice of one lemon (this is where I actually added zest of one additional lemon)

2 gelatin leaves*

* Gelatin is often a pork product. I love in the middle east AND am not a 'jelly' fan. So no gelatin. But after a bit of search here I found some cow gelatin! The difference is that this comes in little powder bags of 5 grams. I had to do a bit of testing and trying but I figured that one 5 gram bag of cow gelatin equals 2 pig gelatin leaves....

Heat a small amount (about 3 table spoons) of the cream.  Add the vanilla seeds. Then add the gelatin (if you're using the leaves make sure you soften them in water first. For the gelatin powder, add very slowly and whisk in to the warm cream).

Keep stirring for a bit. 

In the mean time whip the cream with the sugar. When the consistency begins to set add the cream cheese and mix thoroughly. 

Add the zest and lemon juice and the warm vanilla/gelatin cream and whisk some more. 

Spoon onto the biscuit base and move to the fridge once again to set. 

Strawberry topping

200 ml strawberry coulis* 

4 gelatine leaves (or 10 gram of gelatin powder)

10 fresh strawberries, cut in half. 

* no coulis in Abu Dhabi!

So. I warmed about 300 gram of frozen strawberries in a pan. Added 3 tablespoons of sugar and a little lemon juice, once warm and soft I pushed this mix through a sieve and used this as the 'coulis' 

Put the half strawberries onto the cake. 

If you're using gelatin leaves, soften them in some water. 

Warm your strawberry coulis and add the gelatin - keep mixing / stirring. 

Now this jelly needs to stiffen. My sister recommended putting it on ice water.

That sounded too complicated/tedious to me. 

I just took it off the heat. Kept stirring until lukewarm which means the mix will thicken. 

Once it starts thickening, poor over the strawberries and move the whole thing to the fridge again to set.

So.

The end result was delicious!

But

I couldn't help but think this was a tedious recipe and I really am not such a jelly fan. I thought the topping especially was a bit much.

If I was in a fancy mood, you know trying to impress, I would certainly make it again.

For an equally delicious and somewhat simpler cheesecake I made a second cake. 

I followed the instructions until I got to the strawberries. 

Instead I sprinkled about 40 blueberries over the cheesecake filling (once it was set) and dusted the whole thing with icing sugar.

Its delicious, and almost a little fresher.

My husband much prefers the second cake...

Let me know which one is your favourite!

Back with more soon.

And I will chase my sister to write some feedback on some of my recipes!

Enjoy.