Maple & Blueberry Cheesecake

Another week, another birthday cheesecake. But this one is very different to the last one, it's baked and it happens to be gluten free. I'm not experienced at all in gluten-free baking, but my sister in law can't have gluten and she loves cheesecake and requested a blueberry cheesecake (same as last year!). It isn't the prettiest of cheesecake (my baked cheesecakes always seem to turn out kinda fugly), but it's really, really tasty. The base is made with gluten free gingernut biscuits (which you could always replace with regular ginger biscuits), the filling is a baked ricotta cheesecake with maple syrup and vanilla bean and I made a thick blueberry topping similar to a pie filling.

No innards shots as this is a birthday dessert, but you all know what the inside of a cheesecake looks like. It's the same recipe as this strawberry ricotta cheesecake, with a few tweaks. The ricotta keeps the filling light and fluffy, which is good since I usually find baked cheesecakes too dense for my liking.

I nearly had another cheesecake disaster, can you believe it? The latch on my springform tin broke off while I was trying to carefully remove the cheesecake from the tin, and the tin was jammed shut and refusing to spring loose. I had to pry the thing apart with pliers. Luckily the cheesecake is in one piece and ready for dinner. Hopefully I'll be back soon blogging about something other than a cheesecake recipe!

Maple & Blueberry Cheesecake

(makes one 20cm cheesecake, serves 8-10)

For the cheesecake:

250g (1 packet) Ginger Nut biscuits (ginger snaps for those in the US, homemade recipe here), I used store-bought gluten free ones from Coles this time

80g butter (about 3/4 stick butter), melted

330g (11.6oz) cream cheese, softened

500g ricotta (17.6oz) ricotta

2/3 cup maple syrup

1 tbsp grated lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean pod (or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)

4 eggs

1.5 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)

1.5 tbsp water

1. Preheat oven to 165°C (330°F) (150°C(300°F) for fan-forced), grease and line the base of a 20cm round springform tin.  
2. Place ginger nut biscuits in a food processor and pulse until they are broken down to even crumbs. Add butter and pulse to combined. 
3. Press into the base of your prepared tin and  bake in oven for about 10 minutes, take care that it does not burn. 
4. Prepare the filling; place cream cheese, ricotta, maple syrup, lemon zest and vanilla bean in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until smooth. 
5. Mix water and cornflour together in a separate bowl until smooth and then add the mixture and the eggs to the food processor bowl, pulse until combined. (If you don't have a processor, beat cream cheese and ricotta until smooth and fluffy in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high. Add the rest of the ingredients and then beat again until smooth.) 
6. Pour mixture over the chilled base and bake for an hour. The edges should be just golden and the centre might still be wobbly. Do not remove cheesecake from oven, turn off the heat and keep the door closed and allow the cheesecake to rest in the oven for another hour. Then remove from the oven and sit in tin on a wire rack until completely cool.

For the blueberry topping:

150g (2 punnets/5oz) blueberries, fresh or frozen

1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch) + 2 tsp cold water

1. Place blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla in a medium saucepan and place on medium heat. Stir over heat until sugar dissolves. 
2. Mix cornflour and water together in a separate small bowl then add to the saucepan and stir over medium heat until mixture thickens, about 3-4 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. When cheesecake and filling are cool, spread mixture carefully over the top of the cheesecake. Run a sharp knife around the inside edge of the pan and then carefully remove from the springform tin. Keep chilled until ready to serve.