The Brilliant Chef Back in the Kitchen: White Chocolate Cheesecake

When we went shopping before Christmas, I bought the ingredients to make white chocolate cheesecake and my mum kept moaning that the raspberries were going to go mouldy. So today I made a white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry sauce.

Mum made the sauce and I made the cheesecake.

Ingredients for the cheesecake (makes 20cm cheesecake)

175 g digestive biscuits

200g white chocolate

75g butter

400g cream cheese

50g caster sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the raspberry sauce:

1 pack of fresh raspberries

Around 50g caster sugar

A splash of Madeira

A little water

A few strawberries to serve with

Method:

1. Crush the biscuits by putting them in a plastic bag and hitting it with the end of a rolling pin until they are crushed into crumbs.

Crushing the biscuits

2. Melt the butter then mix in the biscuit crumbs.

Melt the butter

Then mix in the biscuit crumbs

3. Use a cake tin with a loose base and put the buttery biscuit mix in it and push it down until it is spread across the whole base of the tin. Then put it in the fridge for a while.

4. Then break the white chocolate into pieces into a glass or metal bowl.

Break the chocolate into a bowl

5. Then melt the chocolate over a pan of hot water. Make sure the bowl is not actually touching the water. Once it is melted leave it to cool a little.

Melt the chocolate over a pan of hot water

6. In one bowl, Mix together the cream cheese and 50g caster sugar.

7. In another bowl mix together 2 eggs and the vanilla extract.

8.Then mix the egg mixture into the cream cheese mixture a bit at a time. Keep mixing it as you go.

9. When the egg mixture and cream cheese mixture have been mixed together pour in the melted white chocolate and stir it in.

Licking the rest of the melted white chocolate - chef's perk!

10. Pour this mixture onto the biscuit base.

Pour the mixture onto the biscuit base

11. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 30 minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave it in there for another 30 minutes.

12. Take the cheesecake out the oven and leave it to cool. Then put it in the fridge for 2 hours.

13. For the raspberry sauce, put the raspberries in a pan with some sugar and a little water. Add a little Madeira.

14. Bring to the boil and then simmer for a few minutes. 

15. Then push it through a sieve to remove the raspberry seeds. Leave the sauce to cool and then put it in the fridge.

16. Serve the cheesecake with the raspberry sauce and some strawberries. (We forgot to take photos of the cheesecake with the sauce and the strawberries but it did taste really good - my whole family really LOVED it! )