Strawberry Cheesecake

Recipe: Strawberry Cheesecake Recipe »

This strawberry cheesecake is one special cake. This cheesecake is so light and silky and not heavy, even for a baked cheesecake. It is topped with fresh strawberries dipped in a strawberry glaze. If you love the Cheesecake Factory's Strawberry Cheesecake then you will love this one! This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.

This strawberry cheesecake recipe uses Graham crackers in the base, cream cheese, sour cream, cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla. It's very simple but I promise once you try this cheesecake, you may be replacing your regular cheesecake with this one! I modelled this on the famous Cheesecake Factory strawberry cheesecake, their best selling cheesecake of all time. I remember reading that the owner of the Cheesecake Factory David Overton said, "good cheesecake is just 5 ingredients, it's just how you mix them!" and I had that going through my mind as I was testing it out.

Tips For Making An Amazing Strawberry Cheesecake

1 - The Cheesecake Factory uses Graham crackers in their base and I bought some from amazon. If you can't access Graham crackers you can use Malt o milk, granita or digestive biscuits and add a teaspoon of vanilla. I also like using Biscoff cookies in the base.

2 - Use full fat sour cream and cream cheese (rather than low fat) to get that silky texture to your cheesecake.

3 - There are a couple of things that make this cheesecake so smooth and light textured despite it being a baked cheesecake. The first is adding sour cream to it. The second is making sure that the cream cheese and sour cream are beaten until very smooth without any lumps. To do this, microwave the cream cheese until very soft and warm so that the beater can easily mix this to super smooth.

4 - Two things will make a cheesecake develop a crack on the top. The first is overbeating the eggs. Add the eggs in last mixing by hand after the cheese, sugar and creams have become completely smooth.

5 - The second thing that causes cracks in your cheesecake is heating and cooling the cheesecake too quickly. Bake this cheesecake in a water bath on a low temperature (140C/280F fan forced). When it has finished baking it will still have a wobble to it but will firm up on cooling. Cool the cheesecake in the oven with the door ajar.

6 - This recipe is designed to fit an 20cm/8inch springform tin. If you use a 23cm/9inch tin the cheesecake will be flatter and require a little less time to bake.

Dear Reader I don't know if you noticed in these pictures but we finally have the renovated sideboard ready to show you all! It was such a labour of love (or madness depending on your perspective). Over the January holidays I started off doing the sanding and quickly tired of it but kept going until all of the sanding was done. The sanding is the most boring and challenging part, especially with Jacobean furniture that has all of those tiny details.

Once that was finished I went to the paint store to buy a base and paint and then brought them home. Mr NQN stepped in and decided that I was way too haphazard to do the painting. I could have argued back but honestly at this point I was happy to let him take the reins. So I agreed and ran away telling him that he was absolutely right, I was in no right state of mind to paint. We had a slight deadline when we had people over for a party so that made him move a bit faster.

It's not perfect by any means, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Everyone that sees it remarks on how much they love it and how it was transformed. I'm just happy to have somewhere to put things and happy that it's all over. And our career restoring furniture has come to an abrupt end, best left to the experts! I'll stick to cooking :)

So tell me Dear Reader, are you good at restoring furniture and crafts?

Strawberry Cheesecake

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour 45 minutes

For Crust

• 180g/6ozs Graham crackers
• 40g/1.4ozs caster or superfine sugar
• 80g/2.8ozs butter, melted

For Filling

• 3x 250g/8.8oz blocks cream cheese (750g/1.7lbs total)
• 350g/12.3ozs sour cream
• 40ml/1.4flozs cream
• 215g/7.6ozs caster or superfine sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs, room temperature, beaten

For Strawberry Sauce and Decoration

• 100g/3.5ozs strawberries, pureed
• 50ml/1.7flozs water
• 45g/1.6ozs white sugar
• 2 tablespoons strawberry jelly/jello powder
• 4 tablespoons hot water from kettle
• 400g/14ozs strawberries for decoration

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 140C/280F fan forced and line a 20cm/8inch springform pan on the base and sides. Have a high sided baking tray ready that is at least 5cm/2inches high on the sides that will fit the springform pan. This will be the water bath.

Step 2 - Process the Graham crackers until very, very fine. Mix the crumbs with the butter and sugar and press into the base and sides. Use a straight sided glass to press this into the pan and don't worry if it doesn't go all the way up the sides to the top and isn't even at the top. Bake the crust for 18 minutes and then cool completely.

Step 3 - Put a kettle full of water onto boil. Surround the tin with 3-4 layers of foil to protect the tin from water in the waterbath. If any crumbs dislodge from the crust during baking just remove them with a spoon.

Step 4 - Heat the cream cheese in the microwave on 50% power on 1 minute bursts until very soft and a butter knife can cut through it easily with little resistance-the cream cheese should be warm, not cold at this point. Place the cream cheese, sour cream, cream, sugar, vanilla and salt in a mixer bowl with a beater attachment and beat until very smooth. Add the beaten eggs and mix these in by hand until it is combined but do not overmix. Gently pour over the crust. Smooth over the top and bake for 1.5 hours turning halfway. The cheesecake should still be a bit wobbly but will firm up on cooling. Cool with the oven door ajar for a few hours. Remove the foil and cover and refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours until very firm.

Step 5 - Make the strawberry sauce by placing the pureed strawberries, water and sugar in a small saucepan and heat until simmering. You should have a jammy consistency after 10 minutes. Use a stick blender to process until smooth. Heat the strawberry jelly powder with hot water until dissolved and then add to the strawberry sauce. Cool to room temperature.

Step 6 - Unclip the cheesecake and place on a serving plate. Cut the base of the strawberries so that they sit flat. I like to line up the best strawberries on the top just to see what it will look like before I dip them. Then I dip each into the cooled strawberry sauce and place back on the cheesecake. Serve with whipped cream.

This cheesecake will last for 5-7 days in the fridge covered well. It can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Some say 6 months!