Baked Strawberry Cheesecake

This is officially my favourite baked cheesecake. Think of luscious roasted strawberries with juices to die for, topped on a strawberry-flavoured cheesecake. It has ricotta in it, which makes it so light and fluffy compared to the only cream cheese ones. I actually first saw this on Raspberri Cupcakes, and I instantly wanted to make this particular one since I was craving for cheesecake recently. 

Strawberries are in abundance and are so cheap these days, which makes it perfect to use them for a cheesecake. I have never roasted fruits before, so I was a little skeptical of the idea of baking strawberries. But they came out so juicy and succulent, perfect for pairing with the cheesecake. Thanks to Steph (Raspberri Cupcakes), I will be roasting fruit more often now! You might have already seen it, but I tried to hide the ugly cracks on top of the cheesecake with the strawberries. This always happens to me whenever I bake a cheesecake.

 

I decided to use a recipe from Donna Hay for the biscuit base because I had run out of them and was too lazy to bake a batch. It came out fine, but probably next time I would use biscuits and process them up in a food processor for the base. It was just tasted a little bit more buttery to me...other than that, it was perfect, and next time I will definitely remember to buy more ricotta from the store for this cheesecake.

Baked Strawberry Cheesecake
Makes one 8 inch cheesecake

Adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes and Donna Hay.

Cheesecake filling
330 grams ricotta
500 grams cream cheese, softened
1 cup of strawberry jam
1 and 1/2 tablespoon of cornflour (cornstarch)
1 and 1/2 tablespoon of water
4 eggs

Base
1/3 cup of almond meal
3/4 cup of plain flour
1/4 cup of sugar
90 grams of butter, chopped

Strawberries
500 grams of fresh strawberries
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C (350 F). Make the base by combining almond meal, flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until a dough forms. Press the mixture with the back of a spoon on the base of a lined/greased 8 inch round springform pan. Bake for 15 minutes until light golden and set aside.

2. Make the filling by placing the cream cheese, ricotta, eggs and strawberry jam in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until just combined. Combine the cornflour and water together in a small bowl and add to the cream cheese mixture. Process until smooth. Pour the filling over the biscuit base of the prepared cake tin and bake for 1 hour until golden and a little wobbly in the center. Turn the oven off and allow the cheesecake to cool in the oven for another hour. Transfer to a wired rack to completely cool.

3. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (390 F). To make the strawberries, hull and halve the berries and place them in a roasting pan. Add the brown sugar and toss to combine. Pour over the vinegar and toss again. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until the berries soften and the juices are present. Allow to cool completely, then arrange on top of the cooled cheesecake before serving.