For my first recipe on this site, I have choosen this recipe : Strawberry Cheesecake with Almond Crust, Frosted with Mascarpone Cream, Decorated with Buttercream Icing.

Usually for Cheesecake you don’t really need to frost it, but since it’s was an Order from a friend for his anniversary, so I decided to decorate it a bit. For the Cheesecake, I used this recipe from Dyann Bakes. I hope she’ll continue her website in the future, cause I always anticipate her new post. The recipe from her site is just for plain cheesecake, so I adapt from another recipe to incorporate the strawberry in the batter.

Cheesecake is a very delicate cake, so you can’t really just layered it after you baked. I have scarred‘ this cake just by touching the surface. Another possibility is that you can baked two separate cakes, and assemble it with strawberry filling it the middle. I have used this methode to make layered cake using delicate cake such as Flourless Chocolate Cake. I’ll post that recipe some time in the future. But for this one, I decided I want to bake the filling with the batter, more time saving this way and less risk, cause the more you man-handling such delicate dessert, more accident are prone to happen.

I won’t post the recipe for the mascarpone cream since I have yet perfected it. I created this icing cause I was feeling a bit adventureous that day. For this cake a plain whipped cream as frosting would have suffice. I need to adjust more for my mascarpone cream cause even it taste great, it failed as a frosting, since it does not really hold it’s form that well.

There’s a video of this recipe in Dyann’s site, so go watch it first. She explain it so well that I think even a beginner will have no problem if they follow it exactly as how she does it.

Strawberry Cheesecake (adapted from Dyann’s recipe. Recipe yields one 18cm diameter cake, for bigger cake use measurement from Dyann’s site)

Making the Strawberry Filling:
(You can substitute Strawberry or other fruits jem for this if you don’t have the time, depending where you live it might be cheaper)

Ingredients for strawberry filling :
200g frozen/fresh Strawberry
2 tbs Glucose (optional)
1 tsp Custard Flour or Cornstarch
enough granulated sugar to sweeten. (you may need only a little to no sugar if your strawberry already sweet, but if your strawberry a bit sour, you need enough sugar only to cover the sourness, but not too much since there’s enough sugar in the cake is already )

1. Cook all ingredients on heavy saucepan for 10 minutes on low heat. Constantly scrape the bottom of the pan to avoid it from burned. This way the filling will have some ‘bite’ to it.
2. But if you prefer a smooth texture, you can blend all the ingredient first, and then cooked it for only 2,3 minutes.

Making the Crust :

Ingredients for crust :
3 tbs butter
3 tbs sugar
1 egg yolks
½ cup flour
½ cup finely chopped almonds
¼ tsp baking powder

One 18cm spring form, bottom buttered, lined with a round of parchment

1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the yolk until smooth.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients and gently fold them into the butter mixture with a rubber spatula. The mixture will be crumbly.
3. Press the dough down evenly and firmly to cover the pan bottom, which has been buttered and lined with a round of parchment paper.
4. Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 160°C preheated oven,until the dough is golden and baked through.

Making the Cheesecake :

Ingredients for the Cheesecake :
600g softened cream cheese (take it out a few hour from the fridge before baking to soften it )
120g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used bourbon vanilla extract in powder form for better vanilla taste)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 eggs

1. Set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 160°C.
2. Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Stop the mixer and scrape the mixing bowl and beater/paddle.
3. Add the sugar in a stream, mixing until just combined. Stop and scrape.
4. Add the vanilla extract and lemon juice. Mix only until absorbed. Stop and scrape.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing only until each is absorbed. Stop and scrape after each addition.
6. Pour half the batter into the pan over the crust, then pour 3/4 of the strawberry filling. After that covered the filling with the rest of cream cheese mixture. Drop spoonful of the rest of the strawberry filling on top, making several big dot on the surface. Swirl the dots with back of the spoon/chopstick to create a beautiful motive. Don’t over swirl like mine^^, or the motive will not be clearly visible anymore. This is only if you don’t frost the cake later.
7. Place the springform in a bigger pan filled with water to a depth of 1-2 cm.
8. Bake the cheesecake for about 60 minutes, or until firm except for the very center. Remove from the pan. (Mine took 10-15 minutes more, so it’s depends on your oven. So make sure you understand in the video how to know when it is done since it’s a different methode for normal cake)

9. Cool completely. Wrap the cheesecake in plastic or foil and chill overnight before unmolding.