Maple Syrup and Mascarpone Cheesecake

Method

Method

Cheesecake

• Put maple syrup into a large saucepan and bring it to the boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes (or till reduced by two thirds). Remove from heat and mix in the cream. Stir fairly quickly then set aside to cool.
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
• Grease the ramekins, being generous with the butter. For this recipe I used 7 ramekins, but it depends on the size you have available. I guess you could also use just one large mould instead of the individual ones.
• Sprinkle the raw sugar into the ramekins and completely coat the bottom and sides of the dishes. Set aside.
• In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese, caster sugar and vanilla till creamy and soft. Add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Add the mascarpone cheese and beat till combined. Be careful not to over beat at this point, resulting in breaking down of the batter.
• By now the maple syrup mixture should be at room temperature. Take half a cup of the maple syrup/cream mixture and add it to the cheese mixture then stir it through. Save the remaining syrup for serving.
• Place the ramekins into a baking dish large enough to have a gap between the dishes.
• Fill the ramekins with the batter. Pour hot water into the baking dish till it comes two thirds of the way up the dishes.
• Cover with foil and bake on the oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes. Depending on your oven, you might need to turn down the temperature a bit for the last 15 minutes. At this stage they should be a bit firmer in the centre. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecakes in there for a further 15 minutes.
• Carefully remove the whole lot from the oven, allowing the cheesecakes to cool off in the water bath. When cool take the ramekins from the baking dish and place them into the fridge overnight.
• To remove the cheesecakes, just run a knife around the tops of the ramekins and they should slide out easily.
• To serve, drizzle the maple-cream syrup over the cheesecakes, sprinkle with walnut shortbread crumbles and dust with icing sugar.

Walnut Shortbread

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the walnut pieces onto it, then roast for about 7 or 8 minutes. Remove from oven and when cool, put them into a food processor and blitz them till finely ground. Set aside.
• Reduce heat on the oven to 150 degrees.
• Cream butter, icing sugar and brown sugar, then add vanilla essence.
• In another bowl, mix together the nuts, flour and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the wet mixture and beat till a soft dough forms. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for half an hour.
• Press the dough out onto a lightly floured board and cut biscuits out. Place them onto a tray lined with baking paper, then bake for about twelve minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
• When serving the cheesecakes, break the biscuits into crumbles and sprinkle over the top.
• You won’t use all of the biscuits for this recipe, so place the left over biscuits into the freezer for use at a later date (maybe on another type of dessert, even if it’s over just plain ice cream or yoghurt).