Creme Egg Cheesecake

‘Nuff said.

I can not describe how good this cheesecake is. And as always it’s gluten free!

You will need:

Around 170g Gluten free digestives – I used the Tesco Free From plain digestives. Chocolate digestives could be quite nice too, although they come in smaller packets.
80g unsalted butter
300g cream cheese most people seem to say not to use anything other than philidelphia as own brands are too runny, but I used Sainsbury own brand and it was fine!
200g marscapone
100ml double cream
1 lid of Vanilla extract
4 heaped tbsps icing sugar

For the decoration I used one bag of mini creme eggs and 2 full size creme eggs, although I recommend buying a couple of spare large creme eggs because they are a pain to slice open evenly! I added white chocolate dyed with food dye and a little nutella to the top as well.

Line a cake tin with baking paper with enough of an overlap that you will be able to lift the cheesecake out (unless you have a tin where the bottom comes out. Put the large and small creme eggs in the fridge so they are easier to chop up later.
Start by smashing up the biscuits inside a sandwich bag until you have a fine crumb. Melt the butter in the microwave and combine the two in a bowl. I recommend adding the butter slowly as you may find you don’t need it all – just add enough to hold the crumbs together. Push it into your tin using whatever you have to hand, a wine bottle, a potato masher whatever!

Pop your base in the fridge while you make the topping.

Add your cream cheese, icing sugar and marscapone to a big mixing bowl and whisk until they are stiff. I suggest adding the icing sugar inbetween the cream cheese and marscapone so that you don’t get an icing cloud when you start to whisk! Add the double cream and vanilla and fold in with a spoon, then whisk the whole thing again until it’s stiff.

Carefully spoon half of your mixture over the biscuits base. Get the mini creme eggs out of the fridge and, using a sharp knife, slice them open down the line where the halves were fused together. I saved one mini egg for the top of the cake. Arrange the halves on top of your mixture. These will be little surprises for those lucky enough to eat your cheesecake!

Then spoon the remaining topping over the eggs and smooth the surface as much as you can. Chill this in the fridge for a few hours or over night.

Now some may argue that at this point my creme egg cheesecake is not very creme egg-y but fear not, we are about to rectify that!

First I got my large creme eggs out of the fridge and sliced them open. I started off trying to use a butter knife as it seemed silly using a proper kitchen knife (and I would’ve had to wash one up) but this did not work. At all. But my housemates were ok with eating the ruined creme eggs funnily enough. I also kept a mini creme egg aside for the topping from earlier, I arranged them in a little pile in the middle of the cheesecake, but lay them however you fancy, this is the fun part!

Melt a few squares of white chocolate in a microwave or over a pan of water until smooth and liquid, then slowly add a few drops of orange food colouring. Don’t add it all in one go or your chocolate may solidify (if anyone knows why this is please let me know in the comments? It drove me crazy when I was making my chocolate Button cake).This is the messy part! Using a fork, flick the orangey chocolate over the cake. Then melt some more chocolate, leave it white and flick this over the cake too. Finally, do the same either with milk chocolate or nutella. I used nutella just because I am addicted to nutella at the moment (I literally am eating nutella on toast as I write this, I have a problem), but i did have to stir it a little in the jar to get it to a good flickable consistency.

Once you’re done decorating, put your cheesecake back in the fridge until you’re ready to serve it. Don’t forget to use a sharp knife to cut the slices so that it will go through the hidden creme eggs!

Enjoy! If any of you have a go I’d love to see your pictures or blog posts in the comments. Also, do you have any other suggestions for gluten free easter treats?

Olivia X