My contribution to this merry madness is cheesecake. It had become traditional for me to make Axel a birthday cheesecake. I have, in the past, made Bailey's cheesecake, Pina Colada cheesecake and Turtle cheesecake.
This year, I had two pints of organic raspberries in my fridge, and a bag of white chocolate baking chips. It was inevitable that I bake Axel a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.
This may sound odd coming from the girl with Too Many Fancy Cookbooks, but the following recipe is adapted from one I found on the Philly Cream Cheese website. What can I say? They know their cream cheese.
Ingredients
- 1-1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 3 pkg. (250 g each) cream cheese, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 3 eggs
- 2 pints of fresh raspberries
- A handful or 2-3 squares of white chocolate
| Heat oven to 350°F. |
| Mix crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan. |
Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with mixer until well blended. I only had two packages of cream cheese on hand, but I did have an almost-full tub of mascarpone cheese, so I threw that in. It added a lovely creamy texture to the cheesecake. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Add the raspberries and mix into the batter by hand. Some berries will break and blend into the batter and some will stay whole. Just let them berries do their thing! Melt the white chocolate over a double boiler or a metal dish set over a pan of hot water and blend and melted chocolate into the batter. Pour over crust. |
| Bake 40 to 50 min. or until centre is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim. Refrigerate cheesecake 4 hours. |
Not to put a fine point on it, this cheesecake is divine! The richness of the cheese and white chocolate is offset by the tartness of the berries.
