Season’s Greetings to all! What season, a bright reader may wonder? Eid, Ganesh Chaturti, or even the end of Shravan? Nope- this is even more sacred—the beginning of the strawberry season! (Applause)! While the rest of the world has already enjoyed its plenitude of this sweet blessing, Mumbai has finally opened its gates to a long wonderful season full of berries. My mother made the mistake of casually mentioning to me that she may have spotted strawberries at the green grocer’s a few days ago. That was incentive enough to procure a lust-worthy recipe, use the painstakingly acquired strawberries (by my wonderful mother) and creating my little masterpiece!
Strawberry and White Chocolate Baked Cheesecake (adapted from KO Rasoi)
Ingredients: Serves about 8-10 people
For the base:
1. ¼ cup butter, soft
2. 2 ½ cups digestive biscuits, crushed finely
For the filling:
1. 500 gm ricotta cheese, at room temperature
2. 500 gm cream cheese, at room temperature
3. 1 ½ cup granulated sugar
4. ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
5. 1 cup castor sugar
6. 2 tbs corn flour
7. 1 1/3 cup double cream
8. 1 ½ tsp vanilla bean extract
9. 100 gm/ ½ cup melted white chocolate
10. 1 cup strawberries
11. 1 tbs flour, for dusting
So before I begin on the recipe, it’s probably the right time to point out that this is my first ever attempt at making a cheesecake. While my photography lacks certain professionalism, I am proud to say that this cake was anything but professional! As my first attempt, I am delighted that it turned out not just gorgeous on the eyes, but even more sensational on the tongue. I write this specifically to steer those of you who are not familiar with baking cheesecakes (like myself), to give this one a shot—it works!!
Method:
1. For the base: fill a zip lock bag with the digestive biscuits, seal it and give them a good bashing with a wooden spoon/rolling pin. For utter fineness, continue for a few minutes to make sure no bits remain. Once this is done, use your fingers to mix this gently, but well, with the butter. Once it’s taken on a little darker hue, and combined, press firmly into a dish of your choice which is oven friendly.
2. Now for the filling: clean the strawberries, and quarter each, then slice each quarter once more (i.e. 1 strawberry=8 pieces). Dust them with the flour. This is a genius trick—the flour prevents the strawberry from dropping to the base while it bakes. So make sure to dust them!
3. Beat together the rest of the ingredients with a hand blender; except the fruit – flour mix. I recommend mixing together ingredients 1-3 first, so that the cheeses are well mixed before adding ingredients 4-9.
4. Pour the filling on top of the base, till the ½ mark. Add the strawberries. Cover with the remaining filling. Make sure the filling is no more than ¾ full- (please see feedback no. 3). Don’t over lill from the 3/4th mark; use the remaining filling some other time! I have about 1 ½ cups left over, which is resting in the freezer till I lay my eyes one some blueberries!
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180*c for 60-75 minutes, until the top is golden brown and well baked. It will of course be hot and runny, so remove carefully and leave to sit for an hour before transferring to the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or overnight before digging in.
Feedback:
1. I used an 8” cake round, but I recommend using a larger one as I felt my cheesecake was a little thicker than optimal. Line the base well and place in fridge while the filling is made.
2. As it is the foreboding of the season, the strawberries used were rather small—1 inch maybe. So if you are using larger ones, cut them into more slices, as appropriate to your eye and tongue.
3. The filling tends to become molten and increase in volume while baking, so don’t make the same mistake I did and fill the baking dish till the brim- it will overflow. And we don’t want to waste this luscious cake, do we?
4. This cake works wonderfully to prepare in advance as the required sitting time in the refrigerator is 8 hours.
5. For added oomph- make a compote to go with it. Use any good strawberry jam (3 tbs) and heat over a medium flame for a few minutes with ½ cup water. Let it simmer till syrupy- and leave to cool. You can pour this over the cheesecake and let it set, or serve it on the side!
6. Suggestion for any left over filling: use cupcake moulds, repeat the same process above for individual sized cheesecakes!
7. Use any other berry or fruit of choice, the original recipe called for blueberries.
