whine & dine

Okay, bad rhyme. But I can’t help it – cheesecakes just get me into a certain sort of silly mood. As with most desserts, I’m generally not too hot on funny mutated variations, and I keep my tweaking to the minimum flavour-wise. Cheesecake doesn’t get any special treatment from me in this respect – I love it plain, rich, heavy, and with a buttery biscuit crust. No Oreos, no chocolate, no marbling, no fruits. Well, maybe I could do with a little compote or coulis on the side, but it should never be baked INTO the cake. I’m also not too fond of the Japanese souffle-style light cheesecakes. I want a cheesecake that’s so rich I can barely eat more than a sliver at a time – I just keep going back to the fridge for multiple slivers :)

This recipe is one that I found in my mom’s little scrapbook of recipes, where she’d paste her magazine and newspaper cutouts haphazardly, faded black and white pictures interspersed along with the recipes, and her scribbles on the notebook alongside the scraps, noting down changes she may have made. I was particularly intrigued by this one because it was on a tiny 2×2″ square of paper, with no title and only the vaguest of directions. It was barely more than the ingredients and the instructions to “combine ingredients, pour over crust, bake at low temp for 40 min”. Goodness knows where she even copied it down from. Over the past 10 years, my mom and I have experimented with this cake and I’ve now got my version of it, and hopefully with my notably more long-winded instructions, you’ll be able to add this to your list too.

Because of how rich the cake is, I can never eat a normal-sized slice at once. I like to bake it in an 8.5″ or 9″ square cake pan so that I can cut it into small, neat squares (or not-so-neat other shapes), but you could always use a 9″ round springform pan instead.

Cheesecake
(Adapted from my mom’s recipe scrapbook)

10 McVities Digestive Biscuits
60g unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing
3 x 8oz packets of Philadelphia cream cheese, at room temperature
100g caster sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
fine sea salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease an 8.5-9″ square cake pan or a 9″ round springform pan well with butter (both the sides and the base). Line the square pan with a strip of greaseproof paper that hangs over the edges of the pan (this will make unmoulding the cake a lot easier), or the base of the springform pan. Butter the paper as well.

Place the digestive biscuits into a bowl or a resealable plastic bag and crush. It doesn’t need to be 100% homogeneously crumbled into a fine dust but you don’t want any huge lumps. Add the melted butter and a pinch of salt, stir together (it should look like damp sand), then press this firmly into the base of the prepared pan. Keep the pan in the fridge while you assemble the cake.

Beat the cream cheese in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment at medium speed for 2 minutes to further soften it. Gradually add the sugar and a pinch of salt, then cream for 5 minutes on medium-high speed until it’s fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions, then beat in the vanilla extract. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the prepared pan, then transfer the pan into the preheated oven and bake for 70-80 minutes, or until the middle is just set. If you prefer that the surface of your cake not be browned, you can also tent some foil loosely over the pan.

Once the cake is done, set the cake, in its pan, on top of a wire rack to cool completely, then unmould and refrigerate until completely cold. I love it as is, but you can always top it with some whipped sour cream, strawberry or blueberry compote, or I suppose no one will stop you if you even want to drizzle some chocolate sauce over!

Yield: Serves 6-10