Recipe: Baked cheesecake

We were at the Village Grocer last night and I suddenly decided I wanted to make cheesecake.
Came back home straight away after buying the ingredients and started on it.

Ingredients:
125g digestive biscuits crumbs
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
450g ricotta cheese
450g cream cheese, melted
2 tsp vanilla essence
175g sugar, sieved
3 eggs,
150g fresh blueberries (optional)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 160'C. Place 12 paper baking cases in a muffin tin.

Put digestive biscuit crumbs into a bowl and stir in the butter. Spoon tablespoons of the crumb mixture into the cases, pressing firmly into the bottom. Chill to set.

Beat the ricotta until smooth. Add the cream cheese, vanilla and icing sugar, blending until smooth. Slowly add the eggs, blending well. Spoon the mixture into the cases.

Bake for 25 mins. Remove from oven and cool for 5 mins before removing the cupcakes to cook on a rack. Chill for a couple of hours or overnight. Serve topped with blueberries.

Store covered for up to 2 days in the fridge.

Pet's Comments:
I made the mistake of not allowing the cream cheese to soften a bit more before adding it to the ricotta. Perhaps it would be better to lightly beat the cream cheese separately before adding it in. The mixture came out rather lumpy but after baking and chilling, it seems to have turned out alright..

We managed to get 21 cupcakes out of this. This may be because our cupcake cases were smaller?

Also, the top didnt look nice and smooth, which is perhaps why the recipe calls for blueberries to be added on top.

But it tasted great!!




The recipe comes from my favourite cupcake book - 500 Cupcakes & Muffins by Fergal Connolly. Almost every cupcake recipe I've tried in this book works... which to me, indicates a good cookbook.