Cherry Cheesecake - My Coles Magazine Comes Out Again

In a previous post I mentioned how in love with the latest Coles Supermarket FREE magazine I am. It had a stack of great Christmas cooking ideas and seasonal recipes for all the Summer produce which is around at the moment. 

We have lots of extended family so over the last few weeks there have been lots of Christmas catch ups. I've made the Cherry Cheesecake recipe from the Coles magazine for two of them and it has gone down a treat.

First grind/break up 12 Arnott's Granita/Milk arrowroot/Marie biscuits in a food processor. Melt 60g butter and mix into the crushed biscuits and press the biscuit mixture into the base of a 20cm diameter (approx) cake tin or cheesecake tin.

Use the back of a spoon to press it all in firmly and place the whole thing in the fridge to cool whilst you're preparing the rest of the cheesecake.

Place 2 Tsp Gelatine and 2 Tbs cold water in a small bowl and stir. Then place the small bowl in a pan of hot water on the stove and heat, whisking as it is heating until the gelatine has dissolved. Put aside/take out of the water to cool.

In a large bowl place 500g cream cheese, 3/4 cup of caster sugar and 3 Tsp finely grated orange zest. With electric beater, mix it all together until smooth and creamy. Add gelatine mix and 250g mascarpone (or alternatively before doing the cream cheese mix, beat 250g of thickened cream until really thick, remove it from the bowl while you beat the cream cheese mix and then add it again when you add the gelatine)

Your cheesecake filling should now look like this. You can now gently mix through your cherries. I used frozen ones from last season but you could use fresh (pipped) cherries. Don't mix the fruit through too well otherwise your mix will go purple, barely stir them through and you get a marbled effect.

Now you can pour your cheesecake filling on top of the biscuit base. Put it all in the fridge for minimum of 4 hours so it can set.

Serve with whipped cream and fresh cherries or alternatively you can make a simple cherry syrup to drizzle over it (not shown in this pic). You do this by cooking 1/2 cup caster sugar, 100g cherries and 1/2 cup water in a saucepan on the stove for about 7-10 minutes until thickened and reduced a bit. Don't let it burn but if it's boils that isn't a problem, but make sure you stir it fairly constantly.

Yum! This is by far the nicest cheesecake I've ever made. I do use cream instead of mascarpone in my cheesecake filling as it's cheaper and you don't have to use cherries, you could use raspberries, strawberries or blueberries to name a few options.

If you don't have a Coles supermarket near you to pick up the FREE magazine you can download it from their website or even download the app on your smartphone (if you have one). I'd highly recommend it.