Ricotta Cheesecake with Balsamic Strawberries

This recipe was lifted from the Taste website after initially thinking of baking a regular cheesecake. Much lighter than it’s cream cheese counterpart, it’s also a lot less sweet, balanced with the perfect match of strawberries and balsamic vinegar in the syrup. Being a lot less rich than a regular cheesecake it’s also a lot easier to fit in more slices lol. In the process of experimenting with other recipes, so will keep you posted.

Ricotta Cheesecake with Balsamic Strawberries – Original recipe here

Ingredients
200g digestive biscuits
75g unsalted butter/margarin, melted
125g caster sugar, plus extra 2 tbs
650g ricotta
1 tbs cornflour
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
150ml sour cream

Strawberry Syrup
55g (1/4 cup) caster sugar
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp cornflour
¼ cup water
250g strawberries, cut

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C and grease line a springform tin, mine was 20cm.

Pulse biscuits in food processor, then add 2 tbs of caster sugar and melted butter/margarine. Press mixture into tin.

Beat together the ricotta, cornflour, vanilla, 125g of the caster sugar, egg yolks and sour cream.

In a separate clean bowl, beat the eggwhites until stiff peaks form, then fold into the ricotta mixture. Pour into tin and bake for 50-60 minutes until golden (mine took 70 min).

Mix cornflour with a little water. Combine water, caster sugar, vinegar in pan over low heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Add cornflour mixture and cook for a few minutes until sauce has thickened. Remove from heat, leave to cool slightly then add the strawberries.

To serve, allow cake to cool slightly (will sink in the middle), then remove from tin and serve drizzled with syrup.

Other baking fruity/cheesecakey posts

Cheesecake Brownie

Strawberry Custard Tart

Apricot Buttermilk Slice

Strawberry Custard Tart

It’s strawberry season, and no doubt, you too, have noticed the abundance in the supermarkets/grocers. In our household we have been devouring punnets continuously and strawberries never usually last long enough to be cooked.

I wouldn’t really call myself a baker, but the sight of our flan tin the other day followed quickly by a fridgeful of strawberries quickly inspired me to bake a tart!

Making the pastry – Go Foodprocessor!

Made from flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and lemon zest combined with egg and cream, this pastry had to sit in the fridge for 4 hours before it was hard enough to roll out.

Tart shell filled with strawberries

A great thing about this recipe was that the shell didn’t need to be blind baked :) Here it is, filled with 2 punnets of strawberries.

Just before getting into the oven

I used a 20cm tart tin which was the perfect size – the custard only just reached the top.

Ready to eat!

I think I may have left it a smidge longer in the oven than I was told to, but it didn’t matter, the tart was still delicious! I was very impressed by the pastry, which was rich but had a lovely lemony tang to it, simply divine. I’d definitely cook this again – if I don’t eat all the strawberries myself first!