Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake

I have been thinking about trying to make cheesecake for a while.  I read a number of recipes and watched a few videos before coming up with what I wanted.  This was a Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake, which has a digestive biscuit base and then a baked cheese, flavoured with lemon juice and zest and with a seedless raspberry jam/coulis swirled through it.  

Most of the recipe actually comes from one on BBC Good Food, with the raspberry swirl being included instead of raspberries.  I read reviews of that recipe and some people said how wonderful it was, where others reported that it failed completely.  I was therefore a bit hesitant to play about with the recipe too much, but I wanted the raspberry swirled through rather than the raspberries folded into the cheesecake mixture.  Although I made my own raspberry jam it is perfectly acceptable to use a good quality store bought jam,, in which case you could ignore steps 3,4 and 5 of the recipe.

Happily it has turned out rather well, so I am very pleased with the result.  It does take rather a long time to complete, but the effort is well worth, as you end up with a delicious lemony cheesecake with hits of raspberry too.

Ingredients:

• 225g raspberries fresh or frozen
• 100g granulated sugar
• 300ml water
• 220g digestive biscuits
• 83g unsalted butter, melted
• 600g full fat soft cheese
• 250g caster sugar
• 150g natural yogurt
• 3 medium eggs
• grated zest of 2 lemons and the juice of one.
• 50g plain flour

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c.
2. Grease a 9inch springform cake tin.
3. Place the water and granulated sugar in a saucpan and bring to the boil.
4. As the sugar dissolves add the raspberries and allow to boil, stirring from time to time, for about 30 minutes until the raspberries have disintegrated and the mixture has begun to thicken.
5. Remove from the heat and strain to remove the seeds.
6. Set aside to cool completely.
7. Take the digestive biscuits and turn them into crumbs, in a food processor, or in a plastic bag hit with a rolling pin.
8. Place the crumbs in a bowl and add the melted butter and mix together.
9. Tip the mixture into the cake tin and spread all over the base, patting down to make it firm.
10. Place in the oven for 6 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then place in the fridge to allow the base to firm up completely.
12. Preheat the oven to 120c
13. In a stand mixer(this can all be done by hand if necessary) place the soft cheese and sugar.
14. Mix until combined.  It doesn’t need a lot of mixing as we don’t want air in the mixture.
15. Add the yogurt and mix in.
16. Add the eggs, one at a time and mix to combine.
17. Add the lemon zest and juice and mix to combine.
18. Add the flour and mix again just to combine.
19. Place about half the mixture in the cake tin and spread all over the base.
20. Use a teaspoon to place little blobs of the raspberry jam onto the mixture and then use a knife or skewer to swirl it in a bit.  You don’t want to mix it all in so the mixture is pink.
21. Add the remainder of the cheese mixture and spread all over, using a spatula to level it off.
22. Add more blobs of raspberry jam and swirl that in as well.
23. Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.
24. Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in there for another hour.
25. Remove from the oven and using a thin, sharp knife run it around the edge of the cheesecake to loosen it from the edge of the cake tin.  This will help avoid cracks in the cheesecake as it cools and contracts.
26. Allow to cool completely and then cover with clingfilm and place in the refrigerator overnight.
27. In the morning remove from the fridge and take the cheesecake out of the tin and place on a plate for serving.