My first ever cheesecake... Raspberry Cheesecake

It was pretty late that I found out about my love of cheesecake, I reckon one of the best is still the first one I had at boarding school in Ireland, creamy goodness on a layer of cookie crumbs. In any case, I've liked cheesecake ever since but I've never actually tried making one... 



The other day I was flicking through a German cooking magazine (essen & trinken 3/2013) that I have a monthly subscription for and came across a recipe that Lufthansa serve in their Business Class. For those of you who've been following me for a while might have noticed that I love raspberries so when I saw this cake I thought it was pretty perfect for a first attempt cake.

This afternoon I had some girlfriends over for some tea, coffee and cake, it's raining again outside but a slice of this cheesecake goodness and a bit of girlfriend chat always helps!

The cheesecake is pretty heavy, like cheesecakes usually are, but the combination of cheesecake and rapsberries helps lifting that heaviness a little and is quite delicious.
My girlfriends liked it too! Definitely a recipe that I will try again! 

Enough chatting now, here's the recipe, it's easy and is good for preparing ahead of time, but also keep in mind that it needs a while to cool in the fridge:

Base:
100g rusks
100g oatmeal biskuits
100g butter
butter for the cake tin

Raspberry filling:
300g frozen raspberries
2 tsp cornflour
200g raspberry jam

Filling:
750g Quark (a german type of soft cheese can be found in some supermarkets overseas, should be in the dairy section)
300g cream cheese
1 tsp zested orange peel
100g sugar
2 packets vanilla sugar
3 eggs
80g flour

You also need: toothpick or little something similar, icing sugar

1. For the base, process rusks and biscuits until mixture resembles breakcrumbs. Melt butter and add to the crumbs. Mix. Grease a spring pan (24 cm Ø) and spoon mixture in pan, push mixture down and create a 1.5cm edge. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (Gas 2–3) on the lowest rail for about 10 minutes..

2. For the raspberry filling defrost raspberries. Squeeze through a fine sieve using the back of a spoon. Mix 100g of the rapsberry puree with the cornstarch and rapsberry jam.

3. For the filling mix quark, cream cheese, orange peel, sugar, vanilla sugar with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes. Add eggs one after another and beat for about 30 seconds each. Add flour and mix on low speed until just combined.

4. Spread half the cheesecake mixture onto the biskuit base. Use the back of a spoon to create five troughs and pour half the raspberry mixture into them. Using a toothpick or something similar mix the raspberry and cheesecakes mixtures a little. Spread the remaining cheesecake mixture on top, repeat the process as before.

5. In a preheated over bake for 50 minutes at 160°C (Gas 1–2) on the lowest rails. REmove from the oven and place form on a cooling rack for 2 hours before covering and cooling the cheesecake for at least 5 hours in the fridge (preferably over night). Remove from spring form pan and sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.