Gluten Free Cheesecake

YAY! Dove Farm have brought out some gluten free biscuits that make brilliant cheesecake bases! I bought a packet each of lemon flavour and hazelnut with a hint of orange. We ate the orange ones and used the lemon ones for a this cheesecake recipe. This recipe is for a 20cm spring form tin, no cooking so a good recipe for kids to make too.

Dove Farm lemon cookies 1 packet (100-125gms)
lightly salted butter 75gms, chilled
soft cream cheese (not Philadelphia due to cross contamination) 300gms
whipping cream 250ml
icing sugar 40gms
lemon juice 1/2 tsp
vanilla essence 1tsp

some sort of topping more on this later

Line the bottom of the tin with greaseproof paper smaller than the bottom of the tin. Bung the biscuits in a blender and smash up to crumbs, add the cold butter in cubes and blend till it starts to clump up. Press this into the base of your tin with a spoon, make sure you press it down hard and even. With an electric hand blender mix the cream cheese with the vanilla, lemon juice and icing sugar till combined. In another bowl whip the cream till lightly whipped, just so soft peaks are made but its still sort of floppy, and then mix with the hand blender into the cheese mixture. Blob this into the tin on top of the biscuit base, spread out and flatten on top with a spatula or something, make sure you don't trap any bubbles in it near the edges.

Chill this in the fridge for about 4 hours, 3 will do and it will be fine overnight if need be. When you are ready pop the sides off the spring form and lift the cake out with the base. Run a knife around the bottom edge and slide onto a plate using the circle of paper, keep this on. You can top this lovely with anything you like! If its a sweet topping then add less sugar to the cheesecake. If its sour (better) topping then the recipe will be fine as it is. You can top it in the tin, or once you have taken it out, depending on the look you want. If you use fruit you can glaze it with some matching jam you have nuked in to micro to make runny. Some toppings are: Black cherry conserve, strawberries, raspberries, dulch de leche, passion fruit pulp, drizzled melted chocolate. When topping it you can imagine another pudding and make a cheesecake that is that flavour, for instance top with lemon curd and meringue pieces for a lemon meringue pie cheesecake. Top with stewed apple, blackberries and crumbled biscuits for a bramble crumble cheesecake. What about a pecan toffee cheesecake? You can swirl flavours into the cheesecake before topping it too! Oooo a tiramisu one would be nice, with coffee flavoured biscuit base, plain vanilla cheesecake and grated chocolate topping, maybe have some orange flavour in the cheesecake mix? Creme brulee cheesecake anyone?

I'm going to go cheesecake crazy!