Festive Cheesecake

I made New York cheesecake for the first time yesterday. It is delicious and I prefer this baked version to the other, easier, no-oven-needed version that is made with condensed milk and whipped cream.

I used a recipe I found online on the BBC Good Food website (here), it takes 900g cream cheese, and given the price of cream cheese in Beijing, it was not a cheap treat; but worth it every kuai. The only problem I encountered was the amount of time you need to prepare it - it's not complicated, but you do need time to let it finish baking/dry in the oven (2 hours with the oven off) and then cool down (at least 8 hours in the fridge). I had visitors for Sunday Lunch and I only started making it at 9am, but yesterday it was very cold in Beijing (minus 12 Celsius), so I could speed up the cooling down process by leaving it (covered) outside, in the garden, until it was time for desert. You can see from the photo that it is slightly runny. Next time I will follow procedure and I am hoping it will be perfectly light and airy.

Although the cheesecake was very good yesterday, today it's even better! I added seeds and juice from a couple of passion fruits for the topping. The tartness of the passion fruit goes very well with the dense, creamy filling and the thin, crusty base made with gingerbread cookies instead of digestive biscuits.

Cheesecake with a festive, tropical twist, I love it!