Lemoncurd cheesecake

The perfect summer recipe, and a true winner if you are looking to serve something really fresh at your next party!

Cheesecake recipe

Servings: 10 slices

Time: 2 hours prepping and baking + 6 hours fridge setting time.

Prep & storage: Best eaten within 2 days. Covered airtight, with plastic wrap to avoid drying out.

Notes: This recipe is perfect if you want to bake a cake the night before an event. Just pop it out of the fridge and serve. Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature and follow the time and temperatures strictly.

Instead of baking the cheesecake directly in a water bath, create a separate waterbath using a deep, large oven trey, place this in the second lowest rack in your oven, just right underneath your cheesecake. This ensures an even baking.

I used a 22 cm springform for this recipe.

Ingredients:

Cheesecake filling:

600 g creamcheese

150 g sour cream or creme fraiche

200 g sugar

3 eggs

Zest from 1/3 of a lemon

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Crust:

400 g any sweet biscuits, I use “digestives” biscuits (crushed)

120 g melted butter

Instructions for crust:

1. Combine the two ingredients. If you want an even more fine crust, you can blend the biscuits and butter in a food processor, this way you will have a compact sand texture, that presses down beautifully, without any crackings.

2. Press the mixture down in a 22 cm springform and bake at 200°C for 8 min.

Instructions:

1. Turn down the oven to 160 °C.

2. Combine creamcheese with creme fraishe and whisk by hand. Add the lemon zest in the sugar and rub it in with your hand. Add it to the creamcheese and creme fraishe mixture and combine. Lastly add the eggs one at a time along with the vanilla and whisk till the mixture does not have any lumps left.

3. Pour the cheesecake into the prepared springform and bake in the oven at 160 °C, 45-60 minutes. place a waterbath in the second oven rack or at the bottom - seperating it completely from your springform. The cheesecake has to be slightly jiggly when it's done. Let it cool down in the oven for 10-20 and then place it in the fridge over night.

Lemon curd

Ingredients:

Lemon Curd

125 ml lemon juice

3 eggs

100-125 g sugar

70 g butter

Instructions:

1. Add lemon juice, sugar and eggs in a saucepan and heat it up on low to medium heat.

2. Stirr constantly until it starts to thicken. When you start seeing a change in thickness, add your butter and keep stirring until you reach a thick curd.

Mascarpone topping

Ingredients:

250 g mascarpone

100 g heavy/whipping cream

50 g icing sugar

Instructions:

1. With an electric mixer, whisk together the mascarpone and icing sugar till smooth. Add in the heavy cream and whisk for around a minute or 2 till it thickens. Be careful not to overmix - i recommend mixing on medium to high speed. 

2. When the cheesecake has reached room temp. You can spread on the mascarpone topping followed by the lemon curd. To create the swirl on top, use a rotating board and transfer the lemon curd into a piping bag with a round nozzle tip, start from the corner and fill the cake going in circles until you reach the center. Let the cheesecake set uncovered the first night or 5-6 hours in the fridge if served the same day.