Recipe: Delia's New York Cheesecake

Waitrose have started doing these fantastic recipe cards in store with recipes by Delia and Heston- they also put the ingredients for one of the recipes all together on a shelf so you can grab the bits easily. One day my other half made me delicious bean enchiladas (http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/s/spicy_bean_enchiladas.html) so I figured it was time I tried one of their recipes out. Of course I went for a sweet one and chose to make Delia's baked cheesecake.

My nearest supermarket is actually Tesco so I swooped in to grab the ingredients - in an attempt to be slightly more healthy I chose to get low fat cream cheese and low fat creme fraiche and it didn't affect the taste in the slightest. Curiously neither Tesco nor Waitrose sell Creme Fraiche in 350ml tubs so I just used 300ml with no adverse affects. Obviously I just used the vanilla extract I had at home rather than Ndali or whatever Waitrose suggests.

Actually, I'm going to quickly talk about vanilla extract - I can't remember when, but at some point in my youth I learnt that if you want your cakes to taste nice you need to get decent vanilla extract (or essence) and you should never EVER use vanilla flavouring. I tend to prefer to use Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract, which is quite expensive, but comes in a 60ml bottle rather than a teeny bottle- it looks a bit like this:

and can be bought in most supermarkets, however curiously, because it has an alcohol base, you do have to get a staff member to ID you when you go to the self service checkout in Tesco. When a recipe calls for a teaspoon I tend to use half a cap full (although I quite often add a bit more for taste).

Anyway, I found Delia's recipe incredibly simple AND delicious and her advice on timing was curiously useful - when you make a baked cheesecake you want it to be not quite cooked inside as it continues to cook when you take it out of the oven and so an hour is about right - I tend to take it out when the edge of the top goes slightly golden brown and starts to pull away from the edge of the pan, but the middle still looks quite yellow.

The second time I made this recipe I decided not to just pile fruit on top since I found that the fruit was quite bitter and the cheesecake wasn't quite sweet enough to counter this. As I was making it for a picnic party I decided to go all out indulgent by buying a toffee sauce from waitrose (http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductView-10317-10001-2019-Waitrose+Toffee+Sauce) and chopping up some pieces of fudge (next time I might try food processing). The end result was incredibly tasty and was rapidly devoured by everyone in attendance.

Which reminds me, I tried coronation chicken for the first time ever and discovered it was absolutely delicious- the lady who made it said it was from an original recipe from 60 years ago that uses apricot jam - I must try and get a copy and try it out. I'll let you know how it goes!

Sadly, this recipe is no longer available from Waitrose so I've managed to find it after a bit of searching:

Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
For the base:
200g pack Waitrose shortbread fingers
50g butter, melted

For the filling:
300g essential Waitrose Creamy Soft Cheese
350ml Waitrose crème fraîche
175g golden caster sugar
25g plain flour
3 large Columbian Blacktail eggs, beaten
1 dessertspoon Ndali Vanilla Extract

For the topping:
200g fresh raspberries
200g fresh redcurrants
Icing sugar

You will need a baking tray and a 20cm sandwich tin at least 4cm deep with a loose base, or a 20cm spring-form cake tin, greased and lined with a circle of Bake-O-Glide or baking parchment. (If the tin is less than 4cm you will need to line the sides as well, making sure Bake-O-Glide or parchment is a couple of centimetres above the level of the tin.)

Method
Preheat the oven to 150ºC, gas mark 3.

1. First blitz the biscuits into crumbs in a food proces or then tip them into a bowl and add the melted butter and give it a thorough mix. Next press the crumbs evenly into the base of the lined tin using the back of a metal spoon to give it a smooth surface.

2. Now make the filling. In a bowl, mix together the cream cheese, caster sugar and flour. Then stir in the crème fraîche, beaten eggs and vanilla.

3. Pour the mixture over the biscuit base and place it on a baking tray in the lower half of the oven. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, by which time the cheesecake will be barely coloured; it should be just set firm on the edge but still slightly wobbly in the centre. Remove from the oven and allow to cool (the surface may crack a little but don't worry) before placing in the fridge for several hours to firm up.

4. For the topping, remove the redcurrants from their stalks by holding each string at one end over a bowl and use a fork to strip the currants away from the stalk.

To serve the cheesecake, arrange the raspberries and redcurrants all over the surface and dust with icing sugar.

Note on ingredients
Half fat cream cheese and crème fraîche can be used in the recipe if preferred.

Delia's spoons:
a useful point to remember is 2 teaspoons equates to 1 dessertspoon and 2 dessertspoons equates to 1 tablespoon