Cheesecake

with Strawberries

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes plus 1 hour freezing & chilling time

Served 4

Ingredients

For the vanilla cheesecake

160g Philadelphia soft cream cheese

20g icing sugar

40g egg yolks (approx 2 egg yolks)

40g caster sugar

4.4g Gold leaf gelatine (approx. 2 leaves)

160g double cream

100g full fat milk

1 vanilla pod, split

Vanilla cheesecake

1)In a bowl, mix Philadelphia cream cheese with the icing sugar

2)Make a sabayon with the egg yolks and caster sugar by whisking them together until the egg yolks go pale and have tripled in size

3)Whip cream to stiff peaks

4)Soak gelatine leaves in cold water for 10 minutes

5)Boil milk in a saucepan with the split vanilla pod and whisk in gelatine and re boil

6)Chill down

7)Mix Philadelphia cream cheese and sabayon mix

8)Add 1/3rd cream, fold in

9)2nd 3rd fold in

10)Fold in last bit with the passed off milk

11)Add to a piping bag

12)Make it into a ballontineby rolling out cling film and pipe the cheesecake in a line lengthways, fold the cling film over the cheesecake and roll in to a cylinder. Tie a knot in each end making sure the cylinder is firm

13)Freeze for one hour

14)Portionup to 70g per portion

For macerated strawberries

100gCaster sugar

100gRaspberry vinegar

100gWater

10 Strawberries (left whole)

Macerated strawberries

1)Heat the sugar, vinegar and water until it boils. Remove from the heat and pour over the strawberries. Leave to cool completely for 15 minutes

2)Vacuum pack strawberries with all the liquor.

3)Store until needed

For the strawberry crumb

60g freeze dried strawberries

10g digestive biscuits

Strawberry crumb

1)Blitz in a thermo, full speed for 30 seconds to powder consistency.

For the biscuit Base

125g digestive biscuits

55g melted unsalted butter

20g Egg whites

Biscuit base

1)Melt the butter in a saucepan

2)Then blitz the biscuits in a thermo, full speed for 30 seconds to powder consistency.

3)Mix together with your hands the biscuit powder, egg whites and melted butter to get a crumble consistency. Leave in the fridge for 20 minutes to firm the crumble up.

Strawberry Gel

100g blitzed fresh strawberries

35g water

Icing Sugar to taste

1g Agar

1)Boil water in a saucepan

2)Then add agar to the pan and re boil and whisk

3)Next, add the strawberries and mix well

4)Chill for 30 minutes, until set

5)Blitz until smoothin a thermo, full speed for 1 minutes, until smooth

6)Transfer mixture to a piping bag ready to serve

For the strawberry balls

4Strawberries

Strawberry balls

1)Scoop out with a melon baller (3 balls from each strawberry so 12 in total)

For the strawberry dice

3 Strawberries

Strawberry dice

1)Dice strawberries

For the garnish

Micro green basil cress

To plate

1)Sprinkle a diagonal line of biscuit base across the plate

2)Remove the cheesecake from the cling film with scissors and roll in the strawberry crumb

3)lay the cheesecake on the biscuit base

4)On top of the biscuit base randomly decorate with the macerated strawberries, strawberry dice, strawberry gel and strawberry balls

5)pick the stalk off the basil cress and lay this at the top of the macerated strawberries to look like the green stem on a strawberry