Friday 19 September 2014

Blackberry, Lemon and Vanilla Cheesecake


J's favourite fruit is blackberries and he is always asking for a blackberry dessert. Luckily I had a large box of blackberries from my colleague's garden in the freezer. I've made numerous crumbles with them but this time I wanted to make something a little special. J also loves cheesecake hence this blackberry, lemon and vanilla cheesecake. The inspiration for this recipe was a lovely two layer cheesecake but unfortunately mine looks nothing like that! However, it tasted heavenly and that's what really counts. I made a vanilla layer using vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste and a blackberry & lemon layer. The blackberry layer was a little tart and paired perfectly with the sweeter vanilla layer. 

I'm sending this to  Four Seasons Food hosted by Louisa from Eat Your Veg and co hosted by Anneli from Delicieux. The theme this month is "getting fruity".


It also fits in to Shop Local hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This challenge was created to highlight produce from local sources. The blackberres in this recipe came from a colleague's garden. 







 digestive biscuit base 

  blackberry mix on the left and vanilla mix on the right 


 ready to go in the oven 

 after baking for about 25 minutes 

 adding vanilla mix on top which mostly sunk to the middle, pushing the blackberry layer to the outside 



 

Recipe adapted from ivillage.com
40g butter
300mls sour cream
18-20 digestive biscuits
900g cream cheese
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
220g caster sugar
180mls milk
4 eggs
360g frozen blackberries
zest and juice of 1 lemon


  • Preheat the oven to 180C. 
  • Melt the butter in the microwave or in a small saucepan.
  • Blitz the digestive biscuits in a food processor and stir in the melted butter. 
  • Press into the bottom of a lined 23cm springform tin making sure that the biscuits also go partway up the sides of the tin.
  • Place in the fridge to chill whilst you make the filling. 
  • Beat the cream cheese and sugar until combined. 
  • Add in the milk then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
  • Add in the sour cream and continue mixing until smooth.
  • Divide the mixture evenly between 2 large bowls. 
  • In a food processor, puree approximately 300g of the blackberries with the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Pour into 1 of the cream cheese mix and stir in the whole blackberries.
  • In the 2nd cream cheese mix, add the vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste and mix well.
  • Pour the blackberry filling on to the biscuit base and bake for approximately 25 minutes  (recipe said 10 minutes but even 25 minutes was not enough for me - it probably needs 35-40 minutes) 
  • Remove the cheesecake from the oven and pour the vanilla filling on top.
  • Return to the oven and continue baking for another hour or until the top is set.
  • Chill in the fridge before serving. 






11 comments:

  1. oh wow, look at that colour, I love the way it's all oozing over the edges and onto the top... a beautiful cheesecake!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Such a pretty, pretty colour running all the way through- I'm really enjoying reading all the blackberry recipes at the moment!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That purple hue is beautiful! I actually really love the fact that the blackberry went to the outside.... Makes it far more interesting that a 'layer'! It looks like it tastes delicious too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end

      Delete
  4. Yum - love your flavours. The cut slices look lovely - I don't know what you were worrying about!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wanted it to look like the picture in the recipe but I'm very happy with this :)

      Delete
  5. Great stuff. Just the ideal dish for this season of very abundant blackberries.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mmm this sounds lovely! Beautiful colour too. Thank you for sharing with Shop Local!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh gosh this sounds soooooo yummy! And such a lovely sounding combination of fruity flavours. Thanks so much for entering it to September's Four Seasons Food challenge and my apologies for my lateness in reading your entry.

    ReplyDelete

I've had to turn word verification back on as I've had a lot of problem with spam lately, Apologies! Please, please do leave a comment - I appreciate every one of them and will reply to all of them. Thanks!