Baked cheese cake with peanut butter base

Slap on a thimble of lemon custard to refresh the palate

Hubby's birthday falls on Mother's Day, which makes dining out every year a bit of a problem.  All his birthday celebrations were always done ahead of that day in order not to jostle with the Mother's Day dining crowd.

When it comes to food, birthday or not, hubby is one happy person when the theme centers around cheese. His birthday wish was to have  a super thick  cheese cake so that he could use up an entire year's worth of dietary cheese quota.

His wish almost came through but unfortunately my 8 inch spring form would not accommodate 900g worth of cheese filling ( this works out to be double of what I recorded here ). The problem of excess filling was happily resolved when I made a standby cheese cake with the extra ingredients, just like Ikea's frozen cheesecake. Might as well, because I know the big pan of cheesecake would be eaten up by the end of Mother's Day.

Verdict : as the amount of whipping cream used is minimal, expect a rather compact cheese filling. If I were to do this again, I would   increase the whipping cream to 100ml for a more sane, fluffier filling.

Ingredients :

Base -

160g digestive biscuits

80g smooth peanut butter

Filling -

450g cream cheese, softened at room temperature

60g fine sugar

3 eggs

2 Tbsp whipping cream ( dense texture ) or 100ml for lighter texture

1 Tbsp corn flour

Method :

Making the base -

Prepare and grease a 8 inch spring form pan.

In a food processor, blitz the digestives until fine crumbs.

Add peanut butter and process. The consistency is about right when you are able to pinch the blended crumbs and it holds.

Transfer blended crumbs to the pan. Using a plastic bag as glove, pat to compress crumbs. Chill until ready for use.

Making the filling -

Note : Do not overwhisk the filling at any stage. This will over aerate the contents and yield a fluffy  "New York" cheesecake texture.

Preheat oven to 170C. Place an oven proof container with water under the baking rack in the oven.

Whisk to break up cream cheese. Add sugar and whisk until just combined.

Add egg,one at a time, and whisk until just ombined.

Add cream and sieve in corn flour. Whisk to combine.

Pour cream cheese filling  over biscuit base, leaving at least 2-3 cm clearance from the top of the pan.

Tap pan on the countertop to release trapped air bubbles.

Bake for about 50-60 minutes.

Cake is done when the center of the cake is firm to the touch.

Cool thoroughly before chilling.

Cake cuts better when chilled and knife is warmed with boiling water ( please dry knife before use )