From My Kitchen

This cheesecake is so completely delicious that although I’ve already got a vanilla cheesecake recipe on this very blog, I felt that I needed to include this one too – the ingredients are a bit different, so I think there’s a place for both. This started off as an Ottolenghi thyme & honey cheesecake, but upon making it for the first time the consensus was that the thyme a bit, well, too thyme-y (I stand by trying out a new recipe when you have friends over because that way you can always fall back on the ‘I’ve never made this before’ caveat when feeding them). So for the second, third and fourth times that I’ve made it I’ve just left out the thyme and reduced the quantity of white chocolate involved, and bingo! It’s a cheesecake so good that I’ve found The Husband standing by the fridge with a fork munching on it for Sunday morning breakfast. It serves heaps of people, easily 8 or more.

Ingredients

200g Hobnobs *

60g unsalted butter, melted

500g greek yoghurt

400g full fat cream cheese

1 lemon (zest only)

40g icing sugar

100g white chocolate

2-3 tablespoons runny honey

* a Hobnob is a crunchy sweet oat biscuit in the UK. For Aussies it’s pretty much like a coconut-less Anzac biscuit.

For US folks you’ll have to use whatever kind of digestive/oat sweet biscuit you can find!

Method

1. Grease and line the bottom and sides of a 20-23cm springform tin. You really need a removable base here because you’ll never get the cheesecake out of the tin without it.
2. Put the biscuits in a large sealable bag and bash them with a rolling pin until they’re reduced to small crumbs, then tip into the pan in which you’ve melted the butter and mix until well combined. Scrape the whole lot into your prepared tin, and press down firmly with your hands until compact.
3. Put into the fridge for at least 30 minutes to chill and firm up.
4. Now onto the cheese bit of the cheesecake. Grab a clean tea towel and lay it over a bowl. Spoon/dollop the yogurt onto the tea towel and then lift up all the edges and squeeze the yogurt into a ball. Twist, squeeze, do whatever works to remove a whole load of the liquid, you want it to firm up nicely but not completely. Discard the liquid.
5. Unwrap the tea towel and use a spatular to scrape the yogurt into a bowl or freestanding mixer along with the cream cheese.
6. Use an electric handwhisk or freestanding mixer to whisk up the cheese/yogurt for a good 5 minutes until really light and fluffy.
7. Add the lemon zest and (sifted) icing sugar and whisk again.
8. Break the chocolate up into pieces and melt either in the microwave or in a bowl over a simmering pan of water – you want it to melt but not be too hot.
9. When cool enough to touch easily whisk the chocolate into the cheesecake mix, then scrape the whole lot into the tin, smooth down, and leave some artful swirls over the top.
10. Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or until ready to serve. Gently extract the cheesecake from the tin, heat the honey in a small pan until pretty liquid and pour over the top.