I try to support local businesses when I can, especially leading up to Christmas, which is why it’s been great to team up with Creamline Dairies on a festive recipe. A family-run business running for over 70 years with a foundation built on local products and community in the North West, a big part of their service if offering #bestoflocal products from independent stores, delivered to your door.
Although I don’t tend to do food shopping online, it was exciting to be able to choose a selection of things that I would use in a recipe as well as other groceries, dairy products, kitchen essentials and store cupboard ingredients. They offer a substantial amount of things in different categories which is great to see, and the service itself is reliable and arrived on time. The fresh fruit I ordered in particular (pears, oranges, apples) was really high quality which I was pleased about.
So onto the recipe: Making use of the dairy products mainly, I thought a baked cheesecake would be a good choice for a festive dessert, flavoured with ginger, caramel and making use of seasonal apples. You could make this a few days ahead of the day to make life easier, and even add gingerbread men on top as an extra festive touch! All ingredients in Italics are from Creamline Dairies.
Caramel Ginger Baked Cheesecake
Ingredients:
For the base –
- 150g Handmade Traditional Oatmeal Oatcakes
- 50g rolled oats
- 70g butter or margarine
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
For the filling –
- 2 x Longley Farm Caramel Yogurts
- 250ml Longley Farm Double Cream
- 400g low-fat soft cheese
- Juice and zest of 1 orange
- 150g coconut sugar
- 2 tablespoons cornflour
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
To decorate –
- 1 large Braeburn apple, diced
- 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
- 2 tablespoons coconut sugar
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- Edible gold decorations
Get making!
- Grease a 20cm loose bottomed cake tin and preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
- First make the base: Place the oatcakes and oats in a blender or food processor and whizz up to break down. Melt the margarine/butter then pour in along with the maple syrup/honey. Pulse again so the mixture comes together.
- Press into the base using your hands, making sure to cover evenly Chill while you make the filling.
- Whisk together the filling ingredients until quite thick and smooth. Pour this over the base to reach just to the top. Bake for 45 minutes, until set and firmed up. Leave to cool to reach room temperature, then chill in the fridge for 2 hours.
- Time to caramelise the apples: Heat the butter/margarine, coconut sugar and ginger in a small pan then throw in the diced apple and cook on a medium-high heat for 5 minutes until softened and a sauce has formed.
- Spoon over the apples around the edge of the cheesecake then drizzle over the remaining caramel sauce. Sprinkle over the edible gold decorations, slice and serve!
