If you followed our Homemade Elderflower Cordial post, you will know I suggested using it to make a cheesecake. This cheesecake is the best I have ever tasted, and I’ve eaten a lot of cheesecake… So as promised, here is the recipe we have been using for a couple of years. You could use shop bought elderflower cordial, but where’s the fun in that?
Equipment
All the equipment needed can be found in most household kitchens:
- A large mixing bowl
- A smoosher. You well need to crush your digestive biscuits up in some manner. Suzy smooshes them up with the hand end of a potato masher. But you could use anything in your kitchen to achieve the same thing.
- Microwave if you have one, a saucepan would work if you don’t.
- Electric whisk. You can use a metal hand whisk, but it’s going to be tough on the arms.
- Wooden spoon or similar.
- Measuring jug.
- Something to put your cheesecake in. We use bowls (and in this example a mug!) We do this to make individual cheesecakes, but you could make one in a large cake baking tin, a bowl or a spring tin.
Cheesecake Ingredients
All ingredients are easy to get hold of:
- 300g of digestive biscuits
- 150g butter (we use salted, but unsalted would work)
- 600g cream cheese
- 300ml double cream
- 75g icing sugar
- 100ml Homemade Elderflower Cordial, or shop bought elderflower cordial
- Juice of half a lemon, or alternatively 1 tablespoon of lemon juice from a supermarket (i.e. Jif Lemon Juice).
We also add a few optional extras. These aren’t essential, but for our tastes we prefer to add them. We find the following ingredients raises the cheesecake from something that tastes divine to something quite sublime.
- Ginger
- Rind of half a lemon
Cheesecake Process
Step 1 – Crush Digestives
Put the 300g of digestive biscuits into a bowl and crush them up. You are aiming for a consistent texture. Don’t try to cheat with a food processor as it will break them down way to small and you will end up with a biscuit base thats as hard as a rock. Crushing by hand may take a little longer, but it allows you control on how fine they go and you will end up with a better biscuit base.
Optional step: When crushed, Suzy likes to add half a teaspoon of ginger spice into the crumbs and mix it through. Personally, I agree with her. It’s adds a subtle taste to the base that really works with the creamcheese and the sweetness of both the icing sugar and the elderflower cordial.
Step 2 – Add butter
There’s a couple of ways to do this. The quickest and easiest way is to chop the 150g of butter up, drop it into your bowl of biscuit crumbs and them microwave it for 60 seconds. If you don’t have a microwave, you could melt the butter in a saucepan and then add it to the bowl. Suzy uses the microwave method as it is quicker, and saves on washing up.
Step 3 – Mix together
Using a good mixing spoon, combine the butter and digestive biscuit crumbs.
Step 4 – Make your base(s)
We make individual cheesecakes so make our cheesecakes in bowls. We divide the base mix up between bowls. We had a bowl missing when we did this batch (probably has a plant in it..), so we also used a mug. If you are making one big cheesecake, just use a suitable container. For best results, pop the base(s) into the fridge. This isn’t necessary (we don’t bother) but you will achieve a better base if the mix is cooled while you make the main cheesecake mixture.
Top tip: When making the bases don’t press the mixture down. Just pat it gently with the back of a wooden spoon to make it even(ish). If you push it down, your base will become a solid mass that’s almost impossible to cut with a spoon or fork when eating.
Step 5 – Main cheesecake mix
In a clean bowl (we just use the same bowl washed out) add 600g cream cheese, 300ml double cream and 75g icing sugar.
Step 6 – Mix
An electric whisk comes in really handy here. The cream cheese is almost impossible to whisk by hand initially, and you need the double cream to thicken. It can be done by hand, but it is hard work and will take much longer.
Step 7 – Remove all lumps
Whisk until all the lumps of cream cheese have been mixed with all the other ingredients and the double cream has thickened. This takes around 2 minutes with an electric whisk. By hand this would take between 5 to 10 minutes and you will need arms like popeye.
Step 8 – Measure cordial
Measure out 100 ml of your delicious homemade elderflower cordial and add it to the bowl.
Step 9 – Whisk again
Back to the whisking. Whisk the elderflower cordial into your cheesecake mix. Just enough to combine together.
Step 10 – Add lemon juice
Add the juice of half a lemon. We had ran out of lemons for juicing as we had just made elderflower champagne. If you don’t have any lemons then store bought lemon juice can be used instead. 1 tablespoon is approximately equal to the juice in half a lemon. And, you guessed it, whisk it again. Just enough to combine together.
Optional step: Suzy adds the zest of half a lemon at this stage too. Fortunately, although we had run out of lemons to use for juice, we still had lemon zest left over from making elderflower champagne.
Step 11 – Add cheese mix to base(s)
Take your delicious mix and add it to your base or (divided equally) individual bases.
Step 12 – Refrigerate
Place your finished elderflower cheesecake(s) into the fridge. The cheesecake will need to chill. This helps the biscuit base set (if you haven’t already chilled it earlier), and the cheesecake mix to set a little. A couple of hours should be good enough, but overnight will get best results.
And that’s it. It’s all done but the eating.
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