recipes++

Apple Cheesecake

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

  • 250g Hobnob biscuits
  • 75g soft unsalted butter
  • 700g cream cheese
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 125ml double cream
  • 2 tbsp cornflour
  • 1 tsp real vanilla extract
  • 60ml apple schnapps (but try other flavours)

For the butterscotch sauce

  • 50g unsalted butter
  • 3 tbsp light brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp white sugar
  • 150g golden syrup
  • 125ml double cream
  • 2 tsp (or to taste) apple schnapps

Method

  1. Put the biscuits into a processor and blitz till crumbled. Now add the butter and pulse until it clumps together. Press the sandy mixture into the bottom of a 23cm springform tin to create an even layer. Put the tin in the fridge while you make the filling.
  2. Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
  3. Put the cream cheese, sugar, whole eggs and an extra egg yolk, double cream, cornflour and vanilla into the – cleaned out – processor and run the motor until you have a smooth liquidy mixture. Scrape down, add the schnapps and process again.
  4. Wrap the outside of the crumb-filled springform tin with cling-film. Make sure it is well waterproofed. Now sit this on a large piece of double-layered foil and bring it around the edges of the tin to make a nest. Sit the foil-covered tin in a roasting tin.
  5. Pour the cheesecake filling into the springform tin and then pour recently boiled water into the roasting tin to a level approximately halfway up the cake tin.
  6. Bake for about 1 ¼ hours or until the filling has set with only a small amount of wobble at it centre. It will continue to cook as it cools. Check it at about an hour, give it a little shake and see how it is doing.
  7. Take the tin out of the water-bath, sit it on a cooling rack, removing the foil and cling-film. When it is cool enough, put it in the fridge, before upspringing it from the tin. You can do this the day before, but it only needs a couple of hours in the fridge.
  8. Make the butterscotch sauce simply by putting the butter, sugars and syrup in a pan, bring to the boil and let it bubble for a few minutes, then add the cream and schnapps. Remove from the heat and let it cool a little.
  9. Dribble some of the sauce over the cheesecake, then cut up and then serve with a jug of the butterscotch sauce.