Lekue - Cheesecake Royale

For our most recent cake club meeting I thought I would make a cheesecake and as our theme was "A right royal do !", I decided on a marbled royale cheesecake and this was a great opportunity to utilise my Lekue ceramic / silicone baking mold, which seems especially suited to baking a cheesecake in. As I now baking gluten free I used a baked nut base as the crunchy cheesecake base instead of the usual biscuit mix. It worked pretty well but did suffer slightly from separating from the cheesecake top.

The Lekue mold performed very well and is a good addition to the keen bakers equipment cupboard, the mold was easy to use and the ceramic base made an attractive serving platter.To make the base use

• 1 cup finely crushed almonds (I crushed flaked almonds by hand)
• 1 cup almond meal
• 4 tbsp granulated sugar
• 5 tbsp butter softened

Mix all ingredients together and press firmly in your tin or mold, bake in a preheated oven at 180c for about 15 minutes until golden, it will hardened on cooling.
For the cheesecake top

• 400g cream cheese (full fat)
• 150g dark chocolate
• 1 pot of creme fraiche 
• 85g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• Grated white chocolate to serve

What you need to do

• Pre heat your oven to 160c
• Melt the chocolate, I used the microwave in 30 sec blasts or alternatively using a bain marie
• In a separate bowl mix the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, eggs and creme fraiche together until smooth.
• Split the mixture in half and add the cooled melted chocolate to one half.
• Now add alternative dollops of the two mixes to top the base , swirl together and level
• Bake in the oven until just set, for me this was about 50 minutes, cool in the oven with door slightly a jar so the top doesn't crack.
• Once cold, place in the fridge and serve with the grated white chocolate sprinkled on top.

The Lekue mold was kindly provided by Lekue for review and test purposes, all thoughts and opinions are my own as to the product.