THE WORLD'S EASIEST CHEESECAKE

 But Derek, I love you, in a really, really big 'pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window', unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me, choose me, love me. - Meredith Grey

Okay, so the quote above has little to do with cheesecake but I'm a sucker for Grey's Anatomy and a big fan of Meredith Grey. Go ahread. Judge me if you must.

 If you've just been reading the recipes here and not trying them out you may be unconvinced by my harping on about how simple they are. Well this one is the EASIEST of them so far. It doesn't even involve an oven! You really just need to try it.

I've adapted this from a Nigella recipe. Ordinarily Nigella's generous hand with all things calorific makes me a little uncomfortable but when the recipe in question is a cheesecake, there's no way to escape without calories anyway, right?

Ingredients:

A packet and a half of digestive biscuits

½ cup unsalted butter

300 gms cream cheese

½ cup confectioner’s sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

½ tablespoon lemon juice

250 ml cream

1 Jar fruit preserve (for a topping, if you like)

 

How to:

1. Beat the biscuits into crumbs. I like to put them in a plastic bag and then bung them with a rolling pin but you decide how you want to pulverize the biscuits. Add butter and mix in with your hands to form crumbly dough.

2. If you want to unmould the cheesecake later then use a springform tin. I usually just leave it in the pie dish and serve out of there. Line the container of your choice with the crumb mixture. You should have enough to create a ridge on the sides of your dish. Pop container into the refrigerator.

3. Take a large bowl and dump in the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice. In a separate bowl whip the cream up and then add to the cream cheese. Whisk baby whisk! Make sure you have a nice smooth batter.

4. Pour batter on to biscuit base and smooth up the surface. Refrigerate overnight.

Yup, that's it. No, seriously you just made a cheesecake.

Foodnotes:

You can add the fruit preserve on top if you want an extra layer of flavor but the cheesecake is lovely even without. If adding preserve, you may want to stir it a little first so it becomes easier to pour/ ladle on the cake.