White chocolate and raspberry cheesecake

For this little blog of mine, I'd like to think I'll update it once, maybe twice a week...it kind of depends on how the whole I'm-unemployed-after-Tuesday thing goes...* This week I wanted to make something quick and delicious to help feed the brains of my hosuemates and I as we power through our final year essays and exams.
It also happens that a food website I follow, Sorted Food, are running a competition involving making something from their long list of recipes in order to win a sexy Kenwood kMix triblade. So that's an excuse to bake AND potentially win something pretty for my kitchen. I'm. So. In.

The other week they made an AMAZING looking white chocolate and blueberry cheesecake which looked divine and definitely fits the bill as something quick and delicious.

Having loads raspberries in the freezer, I decided to use them instead of blueberries but, other than that, I was faithful to the recipe and it delivered. Oh man, did it deliver. The recipe is straight from the Sorted Food website and I highly recommend that you go there and have a look around and watch their video, buuut, for the sake of the pretty pictures I took, here's how I did it.

Ingredients:

 For the base:

150g hobnob biscuits

70g melted butter

For the filling:

500g of white chocolate

50g butter

200ml double cream

500g cream cheese

1tsp vanilla essence

caster sugar

250g raspberries (or whatever fruit you like!)

To make the base:

- Crush the biscuits into whatever consistency you prefer. Some people like it super fine, some like the odd chunk here and there. We left chunks!

- Melt the 70g of butter on the hob and add to the biscuit crumbs

- Stir until all of the crumbs are coated in butter before pressing into whatever is going to hold your cheesecake. We went for an 8 inch-ish glass dish, but the Sorted guys use dinky little ramekins. 

- Put the biscuit base in the fridge for it to set.

- Meanwhile, put the rest of the butter, the caster sugar and the white chocolate into a glass bowl or jug and place that into a saucepan with simmering water in it.

- Keep stirring as the chocolate, butter and sugar will all melt together gently.

- When it's melted, let it cool for a few minutes.
- While you wait, whisk together the cream cheese and double cream until smooth
- Add the slightly cooled chocolate mix with a teaspoon of vanilla essence and mix it again until it's smooth.
- Add the fruit to your mixture and stir it gently so that it's evenly dispersed but has not dyed your cheesecake mixture pink!

- Pile this on top of the chilled biscuit base

- Leave it to set for as long as possible...we managed about 45 minutes before we caved.
- Use any remaining raspberries to decorate and serve!

Just...just look at it. So. Good. And having made it just the afternoon, I think it's pretty much all gone now. My only slight issue with the recipe was that there wasn't enough biscuit crumbs for the base, so next time I make it I'll probably use 200-250g of hobnobs instead.

My chances of winning with kMix are slim but nevertheless, I'm so glad I tried this recipe! I'll definitely be trying it (and others from Sorted) again.


*Yep, deadline is the 15th, and I'm writing this on the 12th. My procrastination abilities amaze even me sometimes.