Apologies for the pics on this one, they aren't great. Just make this cheesecake and see how good it looks for yourself! Problem solved!
I'm so excited about this cheesecake. I know its a bit sad to get excited about a cheesecake but I don't care I am! I'ts my very own recipe inspired by the massive amount of salted caramel recipes around at the moment. I cooked for some friends at the weekend and tested this recipe on them. I thought it was nice when I was making it but then I'm not a tough crowd when it comes to desserts. I'm easy! If its sweet, chances are I will like it. If its got butter in it, I'm sold! Other people tend to be pickier than me. They sometimes find things, "too sweet" (an oxymoron surely??) or sickly so I don't always trust my own sweet toothed judgement.
One of my neighbors is a foodie. Like the type of foodie that makes me feel like I know nothing about food. He seriously knows his sh*t! He owns an unreasonable amount of cookery books and usually when we go round to their house he is reading one. He's massively passionate about food and talks about it about as much as I do if not more. When he's cooked for us its been amazing and he really knows his wine as well. The perfect neighbor really! The reason I'm telling you this is that this guy was one of my cheesecake taste testers so i knew if it got the thumbs up from him, it was good.
Well he said he liked it and so did everyone else so unless they were just being polite, I think its a winner.
I love the combination of sweet and salty and in this cheesecake the balance is just right. Just enough sugar to satisfy me but just enough salt to cut through it and really bring out and enhance the caramel. Topped with pretzels and with pretzels in the base as well, means that you get some mouthfuls which are slightly saltier than others which keeps the dessert interesting and leaves you wanting more.
Here's how I made it:
Ingredients:
For the base,
200g digestive biscuits
50 grams of salted pretzels
75 grams of salted butter
For the cheesecake:
500g full fat soft cheese
300 ml double cream
150g icing sugar
100 ml caramel sauce (recipe to be inserted here)
To top:
About 20 pretzels
More caramel Sauce
A sprinkle of Course Ground Sea Salt
Method:
Start with the biscuit and pretzel base. In a food processor blitz the pretzels until the texture is like breadcrumbs (it may take a while) and then remove and blitz the digestives until they are the same texture. Do them separately as the pretzels take longer. Then melt the butter and mix all the ingredients together. Press into a 20cm springform cake tine lined with baking paper around the sides and bake in a medium oven for around 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it and don't let it brown.
For the cheesecake, whip the cream from chilled until soft peaks. In another bowl beat the cream cheese at room temp with the icing sugar. When the mixture is soft, fold it into the cream. At this stage fold in the cold caramel sauce. Spread evenly onto the chilled base and smooth out the top. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve
To finish the cheesecake, less than an hour before serving, stick the remaining pretzels into the cheesecake around the sides. Then using the remaining caramel sauce, pipe in whatever pattern you like across the cake. Sprinkle with the sea salt and put back into the fridge until ready to serve.
I served mine with extra caramel sauce heated gently and drizzled over each piece. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
The best thing about this cheesecake is that its so easy. You don't need to worry about baking it in a water bath or anything. The basic cream cheese mixture works with loads of different flavour combinations. Its always well received when I've made it with more traditional fruit toppings but I just love the combination of salt and sweet in this recipe. The pretzels aren't for everyone and you could just leave them out if you prefer. Same with the sea salt but I'm telling you... your missing out if you do. Keep posted for my really easy caramel recipe which you could pour over an old shoe and it would make you want to eat it.
Happy eating and baking xxx
Labels: desserts
