I have failed myself. I had tried very hard to not post about things I was making for other people. Today, however, I have failed. We had my lovely brother-in-law and sister-in-law-in-law over for dinner and for some reason my brain had melted and I couldn’t come up with anything to make them. Not just dessert, I was struggling with main course ideas too. It was a fierce sunny day so I thought a roast would be too much, several other ideas entered and left my colander head, but in the end they had a roast. Shame on me. It was chicken if that was any consolation. Somewhat light.

Anyway. Dessert then eluded me. I ended up going to the dairy aisle of the local supermarket, after a lovely sit beside the beach – where, incidentally my son got licked in the face by a stranger’s dog who also stole the end of my apple- and bought almost every milk based product they had to offer; cream, sour cream, creme fraiche, mascarpone, philadelphia and Greek yoghurt. I thought that had to cover enough bases.

On skimming through a few books and websites when I arrived home, I decided upon a New York cheesecake. As so many people will tell you, it’s always a good idea to try out a new recipe when you’re stuck for time and you have visitors. Alas, despite such wonderful ambitions it turned out that I really had skimmed through the recipe. I ended up only adding 2/3 the amount of cream cheese and managed to realise only as I had placed my creation into the oven that after it’s initial 45mins cooking it had to sit in the turned off oven for an additional 2hrs and then refrigerated – preferably overnight. Unfortunately, this was at 6pm and our guests were due at 8.30pm.

So, as a result, I ended up with a Dublin cheesecake; underset and not entirely cold but pretty tasty. Also, incidentally, it happens to be lower fat because I forgot one third of the cream cheese. The original recipe for New York cheesecake that I butchered can be found here.

Oven Temperature 160 Celsius

Amaretti biscuits              140g

Butter                                  90g

Caster sugar                       1 tablespoon

Philadelphia                       280g

Mascarpone                        250g

Caster sugar                        250g

Plain flour                            3 tablespoons

Vanilla extract                     1 teaspoon

Lemon zest                          1 lemonsworth

Lemon juice                         2 teaspoons

Eggs                                       3

Egg yolk                                1

Sour cream                          200ml

For the record: as I never intended to post this recipe I have almost no photos. Apologies.

Preheat the oven and line a 23cm round cake tin with baking parchment and place it on a baking tray. Put the amaretti biscuits into a bowl and smash them into smithereens with the end of a rolling pins. Melt the butter. Add the 1 tablespoon of sugar to the butter and stir to combine. Then pour the sugary butter into the smushed biscuits and mix thoroughly.

Tip these buttery biscuits into the prepared tin and press them down firmly with the back of a spoon or the like. Pop in the oven for 10mins.

In the meantime, put the philadelphia and mascarpone into a big bowl and beat to combine. Add in the caster sugar bit by bit and then in with the flour, also bit by bit.

Measure in your vanilla, grate in the zest and juice in the juice. Whisk gently to combine.

Add in the eggs one by one and then by yolk.

Finally stir in the sour cream. Fear not. The batter should be pretty runny.

Your base should hopefully be beeping at you, telling you it’s cooked. Remove it from the oven and let it cool a minute.

Increase the oven to 200 celsius.

An aside. This is a reflection of the state of my mind yesterday.

So. Pour the lovely creamy, cheesy mix onto the base and place it carefully into the oven.

After 10mins turn the oven down to 90 celsius and let it bake away for another 35mins, it’ll still be mad wobbly but it should, in theory, be okay once cooled. After that 35mins, turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside for 1 hour.

Remove it from the oven and let it cool down to room temperature before placing it in the fridge to cool right down to cheesecake temperature. Loads of the recipes say overnight but I reckon a good 3hrs should be enough. But do refrigerate it or you may need remediation works like mine below.

Unmould the chilly beaut and garnish it with fresh berries.