Almond Crusted Cheesecake * RECIPE |

Hello everybody,
here's a recipe for another dessert, 2 desserts in a row I guess I'm really craving some sugar lately :D Today as the title says I have a cheesecake recipe for you, better said my take on traditional cheesecake recipe. What I really like about this one is that it has the best toppings that you can imagine. This cheesecake is topped with almonds and dried fruit which makes it extra special and the almonds in the crust just tie it altogether and creates the best cheesecake I've ever eaten.

This recipe actually comes from my grandfather's wife who makes the best cakes on this world and her cheesecake is just super lovely. I have done some changes to the recipe but I've kept most of the recipe intact. So let's get to the ingredients.

For the crust:
200 g of graham crackers
50 g of crushed almonds
125 g of melted butter

For the cheese filling:
500 g of Ricotta cheese
125 g of Philadelphia cheese
3 eggs
200 g of powdered sugar
1/2 tbsp of grated lemon zest
1 tsp of Vanilla extract

For the toppings:
50 g of sliced almonds
100 g of dried fruit of any kind
1 tbsp of melted butter

Start by preheating your oven to 140 °C (284 °F). First you're going to prepare your crust by crushing the graham crackers I used a food processor fro this step but I think that you can do this just by using your hands. Then you're going to mix the crackers with your crushed almonds, you can use different kinds of crushed nuts but my personal favorite are almonds.

Now it's time to melt your butter, it doesn't have to be melted all the way, on my microwave settings it took about 40 seconds.

Combine your melted butter with the nuts and crackers and try to form a crumbly dough. It should stay together if you press it with your hands.

After you're satisfied with your mixture, butter up your form and press the mixture in to the form. Try to really pack it on you don't want any air bubbles that aren't necessary, you want a nice compact crust. Let your crust cool for a moment in the fridge just so the butter solidifies again a little bit.

While waiting on your crust to cool prepare the filling. Start by mixing all of the ingredients and mix until smooth. I first tried to mix it just with the help of a spoon but there were still some lumps so I used my whisker to really make it perfect and creamy but If you don't mind couple of lumps of cheese you can skip this step.

Now It's time to pour your filling on to your crust and let it bake for 70 minutes.

Depending on your oven's settings the baking time is going to be different so about 50 minutes in make sure to check on your cheesecake and check with a toothpick to find out if it's done or not. In my case I left it in for 70 minutes, the cheese should be pretty solid but if it's a little bit liquidy in the middle it's not that big of a deal you can move to the next step.

Last step that's going to make your cheesecake extra fancy is putting your topping on your cheesecake, you don't actually have to put any toppings on it but I think that it gives it that something special. If you feel creative you can also experiment and put fresh fruit on it or some jello or chocolate basically whatever you'd like. I chose to put some almonds and dried fruits on top of my cheesecake. I used a tropical mix of fruits that has some papaya, coconut, pineapple and bananas in it. I've put a generous amount of my toppings on my cheesecake mixed with a little bit of butter and I've put it into the oven for another 10 minutes until my toppings got a little bit golden. Make sure you don't burn the coconut because that would taste a little bit bitter.

After 10 minutes of baking turn of your oven and leave your cheesecake in the oven for another 20 minutes just so that it settles a little bit and gets baked completely.

Now you're done and your cheesecake is ready to be served ! Tomorrow we're having a special celebration at school for the 25th anniversary of our French Bilingual section, so I'm going to surely report you on how that went and what the reviews for my cheesecake were ! :)

That's all for today, I hope you liked another one of my recipes, tomorrow is Friday so another look-book of my outfits of the week is coming ! Thanks for reading until next time, Bye :)