Raspberry Ripple Cheese Tart

I did say I couldn't get myself into the mood to cook nor bake at this point of time but things are starting to look up a little. Also there are certainly no shortage of seriously tempting recipes around to get me going.

This was one of many. And I've also not made a cheesecake for the longest time. My family likes the non-baked ones, which is what I usually do (one day, that will get posted ... one day). The baked cheesecakes have always been a little too rich for me.

But when I saw this on Charles' page @ Five Euro Food, I knew I needed to make this and my tummy actually growled in approval! Definitely a good distraction from my worries for the moment. Not only that, the raspberry coulis, I knew, was going to balance out the richness of the cheesecake, so this was going to be a good one!

I called it a tart coz I'd sort of halved the recipe and it fitted perfectly into my flan pan ... and a couple of teeny tartlet tins. If you'd like the full recipe, please visit Charles, check out the English gentleman, ogle at his food and pics and get that idea of "English people eat only jellied eels and fish and chips" out of your head .... what? Nobody thinks that? Only me? Whoops .... (sorry, old chap) ... I forgot about Chicken Tikka Masala :)

(Please don't hate me).

INGREDIENTS

8 digestive biscuits

40g butter

250 g cream cheese

1/3 cup cream

1 tbs plain flour

80 g sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1/4 cup raspberry coulis (I used frozen berries pureed with 1 tbs lemon juice)

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180˚C

For the base:

Place biscuits in a food processor. Buzz til you get fine crumbs.

Melt the butter in the microwave and stir into the crumbs. (It should resemble wet sand)

Press into the bottom and sides of a shallow pie tin or in this case, I'd used an 8" tart / flan pan.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove and cool.

*Note: I made this a second time without baking the crust first and it also worked fine. I'd placed it in the fridge while I made the filling.

For the filling:

* Here you can use a hand/electric whisk. I'd used my food processor again after cleaning it of the crumbs.

Put in the cream cheese, eggs and flour. Buzz to mix evenly. Use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom if needed.

Add the sugar and cream. Process until smooth.

Pour mixture into cooled crust.

Drizzle the coulis over the top. (I'd used a chopstick to make the streaks)

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Cool and place in refrigerator for a couple of hours to set a little (this was the hardest to do ... the waiting!)

(Don't ask me how long it keeps for, coz this was gone within 24 hours)