Donna Hay's Baked Cheese Cake

I watched Donna Hay made this on Masterchef Australia today. It looked good, very smooth surface and smooth texture, and according to the contestants', Gary and George who tasted it, super yummy!

Pastry (Base of Cake)
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup almond meal
90g chilled butter
1/4 cup sugar

Rub the butter into the flour/almond meal until it is like breadcrumbs. (My thoughts: can pulse this in a food processor for easy and even result). Pour onto a 20cm springform cake tin (Kaiser light colour tin). See tip below.

Press the pastry gently down and smoothen with the back of a spoon.

Tip: Flip the base of the tin over, ie bottom up. Line it with ovenbake paper, put back the sides of the tin and lock the tin. Cut off remaining paper sticking out. This way we dont have to dig down and along the sides to remove the cake! Brilliant!)

Baked  at 150C for 15 minutes. Leave to cool, brush the sides of tin with butter to prevent cake sticking.

Meanwhile, prepare the cheesecake mixture.

Cheesecake mixture
500g fresh ricotta cheese (non smooth)
330g cream cheese - cut into squares
1 1/4 cup sugar ( I would reduce by half)
Zest of 1 lemon
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essense
1 tbsp corn flour mixed with 1 tbsp water (to bind all the protein together, and give it a nice gelatin shine).

Put all ingredients into a food processor. Blend until smooth. (The consistency is almost like pancake mixture). Note: Dont beat or whisk as it will create more air/bubbles.

Pour mixture into cake tin on top of pastry base.  Get bubbles off by taking a spoon and pressing them off surface, so that we get a smooth surface.

Baked 150C for 1hour. Turn the oven off. Leave it in the oven for 1hour more. The residual heat will cook the cheesecake through and give it a golden colour. Then, leave it in the fridge for a 3 hours to set perfectly.

Serve it with some fresh berries.

Bon Appetite!