Orange & Lemon Cheesecake

We like Cheesecake in our house, but it can be quite hard to find a good one. I've attempted to make a few over the years, with varying degrees of success, so we usually end up with a supermarket job. I did think that the one they sell in Costco was one of the best I'd ever had. Then I made this....the recipe is from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. It worked well for me, and I think supermarket offerings may well be a thing of the past!

You will need:

80g Butter
250g Digestive biscuits
500g Mascarpone Cheese
200g Cream Cheese
150g Golden Castor Sugar
3 x Large Eggs
1 x Large Egg Yolk
1 x Orange (zest only)
1 x Lemon (zest and juice)
142 ml carton of Double Cream
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract


Melt the butter in a saucepan. Crush the Digestives into a fine crumb. You can do it in a freezer bag with a rolling pin.. or do it in the food processor.....








Add the crushed biscuits to the melted butter and mix well to combine. Set the oven to 140c/Gas 1









Press the biscuit crumbs into the base of a 22cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Stick it in the fridge for 20-40 mins to harden.









Boil the kettle. Put the Mascarpone, Cream Cheese, Caster Sugar, Eggs, and the extra Yolk into a basin (if you have a food processor, do the mixing in that! You'll need the beater attachment).









Beat/mix all the ingredients thoroughly until well mixed. Finely grate the Orange and Lemon zest into the cheese mixture. Stir until well mixed. Now stir in the Double Cream, the juice of the Lemon and the Vanilla Extract.






Now wrap the cake tin in Tin Foil, covering the bottom and the sides with at least 2 layers of foil. You need to ensure that NO water can seep into the tin. Pour the cheesecake mixture on top of the biscuit crumbs and place the cake tin inside a large roasting dish (or similar).







Pour boiling water from the kettle into the roasting dish, so it comes half way up the cake tin. Place the roasting dish into the pre-heated oven and cook for 50 minutes. Then turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake inside the oven to cool down.







When cold, remove from the cake tin and chill in the fridge for 30 mins or so before serving. Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy.......