Sorry I’ve been silent for a while, been juggling many relatives visiting, going back to work and preparing for an exhibition… excuses, excuses. This does not mean I haven’t been baking of course. I need to catch up!

I love cheesecake and am not normally a fan of the baked sort as I think I’ve said before but this is with a biscuit or shortbread style base so not the sponge kind.

This is from my fabulous Chocolate book and is less complicated that the ingredients might imply.

Base
75g plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
75g semolina
50g caster sugar
115g unsalted butter, softened

Filling
225g cream cheese
120ml natural yogurt
2 eggs, beaten
75g caster sugar
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
75g raisins
45ml (3 tbsp) plain chocolate chips

Topping
75g plain chocolate, chopped into small pieces
2 tbsp golden syrup
40g (3 tbsp)butter

Oven at 150 degrees. Sift the flour, cocoa into a mixing bowl and stir in the sugar and semolina. Rub the butter into the flour mixture until it makes a firm dough. Press the dough into the base of a 22 cm springform tin. Prick all over with a fork and bake for 15 minutes. Remove but leave the oven on.

Make the filling; in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with the yogurt, eggs and sugar until evenly mixed. Stir in the lemon rind, raisins and choc chips.
Smooth the cream cheese mix over the chocolate shortbread base and bake for a further 35-45 minutes or until golden and just set. Cool in the tin on a wire rack.

Next make the topping; combine the chocolate, syrup and butter in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Stir gently until melted. Pour over the cheesecake and leave to set. Remove the sides of the tin and slide on to a serving plate. Yum!

So, I’ve been a bit behind with my posts, I think Dan’s been kind and not put too many on his side?! My mum was here for 10 days and I demanded she bake a treacle tart – something I used to love her making as a kid. I may have to post a picture as a guest blog – it looked wonderful. Prior to that I made another loaf from the Dan Lepard book, using a leaven for the first time. It went rather well actually! This is quite a dense rye sweet(ish) bread and is best toasted. It’s pretty involved, what with the leaven and all (starting 6 days before) so I won’t go into the recipe here, just get his lovely book!

It went wonderfully with this Dan’s jam.. what kind of jam was it again Dan? Very tasty.