Angela's scrumptious baked cheese cake

On Sunday we went to Kurrajong for a house-warming party.  It was one of those hot, blustery days and we discovered our car's air-con had died a miserable death so we landed up driving with the front windows open.  Which would have been good if we hadn't been experiencing 'raised dust' in NSW, which is different from a dust storm, we are told.

It wasn't as dramatic as the dust storms we experienced recently, but it made for unpleasant breathing.  Thankfully, the blustery wind blew it away in time for us to sit out on the huge wrap around balcony of our friends house while we ate lunch together.

They live in a lovely part of Kurrajong (which is very hilly given it's in the foothills of the Blue Mountains) on 3 1/2 acres overlooking the old quarry dam at the bottom of their property.  Apparently, it's quite deep and they intend to make good use of the water to grow vegies and fruit.

It was good to have a natter with old friends again and we soon whiled away the day. One of the girls produced a baked cheese cake for dessert that impressed me so much I simply had to get her recipe.

It arrived yesterday c/o email.  Don't you just love technology?  We can be miles away from each other, but that's no longer an issue.  I am tickled to be living in this day and age and look forward to the future.

Baked Ricotta Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients
125g Arnotts Nice (or equivalent) biscuits, i.e. half a 250g pack (for base)
2/3 cup almond meal (for base)
60g butter (for base)
1.5 tablespoons cornflour
1.5 tablespoons water
330g softened cream cheese (do not buy Philadelphia spread – buy the stuff in a rectangular box!)
360g fresh ricotta cheese
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups white sugar
1 medium lemon (or specifically, the juice and finely grated rind from one)
Method
If you haven’t yet, get the cream cheese out of the fridge and let it soften.

Crush the biscuits in a food processor (or like me, grind up in a mixing bowl mortar-and-pestle style using the end of a rolling pin). Melt the butter, then add in the almond meal and melted butter, processing (or stirring) until nicely combined.

Grease a 22cm springform tin, line the base with greaseproof paper, and press the biscuit mix into the bottom to form the base. Put it in the fridge while we make the filling. You can probably get the oven going at 150 degrees Celsius, too.

If you haven’t yet, grate the lemon to produce about a tablespoon of rind, then juice it to produce about 60 ml of juice.

Mix the cornflour with the water in a medium-large mixing bowl, until blended. Ensure your cream cheese is softened, cut it up into small pieces and drop into mixing bowl. Stir together until it forgets its original shape.

Add in the ricotta cheese (and stir), the eggs (and stir), the sugar (and stir), the lemon rind (and stir), the lemon juice (and stir). Stir until smooth. Or forget all this stirring and just put it in your food processor.

It’s okay to have some small cream cheese “lumps” in the mixture, but squash any large lumps.

Get the base out of the fridge, and pour the filling in. Then put into the oven for at least 70 minutes

Maybe our oven is wrecked, but after an hour we raised the temperature to 160 degrees, and kept cooking for another hour again. You can tell when it’s cooked because it will be browned a couple of inches from all the edges, and if you poke a skewer into the middle it will leave a hole when it’s removed.

Let the cake cool a little, and then put into the fridge until it is time to serve. Serve with thick cream.


Enjoy!