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Based on the gorgeous peach melba dessert, this is a cheesecake with a twist and very easy to make you will want to eat the whole thing! If you can use fresh raspberries it is much better, as frozen ones will be a little ‘liquid’ and can make the cheesecake very wet, but if you do use frozen ones, squeeze out as much of the juice as you can – this can be used in the raspberry coulis. This is a no bake cheesecake so once it’s made, you can refrigerate it and forget about it until about half and hour before you want to serve it, to bring it up to nearer room temperature.

Serves: 6-8 portions
Preparation Time: 25 minutes
Chilling Time: 2 hours or overnight

INGREDIENTS:

3½ oz of butter, melted
7 oz of sweet crumbly biscuits, or oaty biscuits
1¼ lbs of soft cream cheese
3½ oz of icing sugar
10 oz of double cream
9 oz of raspberries
4 or 5 peach halves, from a tin and cut into small chunks
1 tsp vanilla essence

METHOD:

Line an 8 inches loose-bottom baking tin with baking parchment (use a little butter to stick the paper in place). Crush the biscuits with a rolling pin using plastic bags so that the crumbs don’t go everywhere! Mix the crumbs with the melted butter, and firmly press down into the tin as evenly as possible. Leave to chill in the fridge while you make the cheesecake mixture.

Beat the cream cheese and icing sugar together until smooth, add the vanilla essence and double cream and continue beating until everything is nicely mixed together and a thick consistency. Fold in 3½ oz of the raspberries and half of the peaches and mix together gently, just using a few folds with a spatula.

Remove the base from the fridge and spoon the mix over and smooth out evenly. Leave to set for a few hours, or overnight.

Blitz the rest of the raspberries, leaving a few for decoration, and mix with the peach juice to form your coulis. If you want it slightly sweeter, and a little icing sugar. Chill until ready to serve.

When ready to serve, take the cheesecake out of the fridge and leave out at room temperature for about 30 minutes – this will make it easier to get the cake out of the tin. Push up the base of the tin and then slide the cheesecake out on to a pretty plate, ready to serve. Decorate with some more chopped peaches and raspberries with cream or the coulis on the side.

TIPS:

This recipe can be made with any kind of soft fruit, blackberries, kiwi, mango etc.

Easy way to remove the cheesecake from its base is to put the whole tin on an upturned round pot or large glass and pull the outer rim down, so that the cheesecake still sits on the top – definitely prevents you from dropping it!

If you are entertaining adults, try substituting the sweeter biscuits for ginger biscuits – adds a little more kick!

Try using coconut in the biscuit base, lime juice in the cheese mixture as opposed to vanilla, and top with passion fruit for a more Caribbean Cheesecake (we have also added a dash of rum into the cheese mix for an ‘adult’ version!)