40g butter, elted
½ cup frozen raspberries, thawed
2 Tbsp icing sugar, sifted
375g traditional cream cheese
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs (size 6)
finely grated rind 1 lemon
1 cup finely ground gingernut biscuits (about 11) use any other hard biscuit if you wish
1 tsp vanilla essence
Method
Preheat oven to 160°C. Line a 12-muffin pan with paper or foil cases. Mix the finely ground gingernuts and butter in a bowl. Divide mixture among the paper cases, pressing down firmly. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from oven and cool. Turn down oven heat to 125°C.
To make the raspberry purée, mash the raspberries to a pulp with the back of a fork then strain through a sieve into a bowl, pressing down well with the back of a spoon to get as much juice as possible. Discard seeds. Stir icing sugar into purée.
Place the cream cheese and caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat just until the mixture is smooth, light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until combined after each addition – you may prefer to do this with a hand whisk, to avoid overbeating. Finally, add lemon rind and vanilla essence.
Pour the cheese mixture over the biscuit bases, filling right up to the top of the cases. Place small drops (about ½ tsp) of the raspberry purée on top of the cakes and, using a wooden skewer, carefully swirl it through the cheese mixture. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until just set and no longer wobbly. Open oven door and allow the cakes to cool completely in the switched-off oven. They do shrink as they cool, but that is perfectly normal.
~ Recipe from Taste Magazine.
