Serves 8 – 10
Active time: 1 hour, plus cooling and chilling
Ingredients
For the cheesecake:
- 12 Ginger biscuits (approx. 125g)
- 50g Butter – melted
- 100ml Double Cream
- 6tbs Chai Latte powder (I used Drink me Chai – spiced chai latte)
- 600g Full-fat Cream Cheese
- 120ml Soured Cream
- 100g Caster sugar
- 2 tbs Plain flour
- 3 large eggs
- 1tsp Vanilla extract
For the Topping:
- 200ml white wine or white grape juice
- 100g Light soft brown sugar – use less if using grape juice, check for sweetness
- 3tbs Runny honey
- ½ tsp Ground ginger
- ½ tsp Ground cinnamon or a cinnamon stick
- 1-2 Firm dessert Pears
20cm deep sandwich tin, greased and base lined with parchment
METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 170C (Fan) 190C (conventional)
2. In a bowl, crush the biscuits with the end of a rolling pin until fine, stir in the melted butter and spoon into the prepared tin, pressing the biscuit mixture down to line the base and ensuring as smooth as possible. Place on a baking tray and pop into the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
3. Reduce oven temperature to 130C (fan) 150C (conventional)
4. Heat the 100ml of double cream to just below boiling in the microwave or a small saucepan, stir in the chai latte powder and stir until completely dissolved. Set aside to cool
5. Place cream cheese, soured cream, chai latte mixture, caster sugar, plain flour, vanilla and eggs into a food processor and blitz until well combined, smooth and creamy. Pour mixture into the tin until almost up to the top.
6. Transfer carefully to oven and bake until just set but with a slight wobble in the middle. This should take approx. 45-50 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake to cool down in the oven for about an hour to an hour and a half, then remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Chill until ready to serve.
7. Place the wine, sugar, honey, ginger and cinnamon into a wide shallow pan. Place on the hob and slowly bring to the boil, stirring frequently until the sugar has dissolved. Taste for sweetness, adding more sugar or honey if necessary. Simmer for about 5 minutes until syrupy.
8. Slice the pear/pears into approx. 5mm thick slices discarding or eating the odd shaped pieces. Add pear slices to the honey syrup and simmer for approx. 5 minutes until the pears have softened but are not mushy, turn off the heat and leave to cool.
NB . You will have to use your judgement, it all depends on the ripeness of your fruit.
9. When ready to serve, remove the cheesecake from the tin and place on a plate. Just before serving arrange the pears on top and drizzle with the syrup.
If you add the syrup too early it will pick up moisture in the fridge and go quite runny, still tastes delicious but doesn’t look so pretty.
