Actually, that's complete rubbish. It's the best thing I've ever had a hand in, because my lovely boyfriend did well over half the work (despite repeatedly professing that he 'doesn't really do baking') and without him it would have been a runny pile of burned slop. I would not have had an excuse to make it if it hadn't been for him either - but we both became infatuated with it after I sent him the photo from Smitten Kitchen, over which I was drooling at the time. Despite it being January, and our anniversary being March, it was sort of decided within about a minute that it would be made, albeit with blackcurrants as a topping rather than cherries.
Now, a project like this requires prior planning because we knew the ingredients were going to be expensive. Add in the fact that I didn't have a big enough springform... well, that was solved by valentine's day. My Mum was left with a beseeching request to buy 4 tubs of cream cheese while it was on special offer at Tesco's, seeing as I would have been extremely unpopular (and unwise) if I had left that in our shared uni fridge. On the day the offer ended (about 3 weeks later) I called her up to check she had it, and she hadn't been able to get any (variously out of stock and a broken down car). My boyfriend came to the rescue, completely clearing out the local Tesco Metro's stock of Philidelphia, and we were on our way again.
Also, blackcurrants. It seems that even when they are in season, they're very difficult to get hold of fresh, and in March it was a losing battle. Actually, getting hold of them in any form was more difficult than anticipated, but eventually it transpired that Tesco had recently started doing them in tinned form, so that was that (until we were about to top it and I realised that the drained weight was only a third of the can weight and we were probably definitely going to need another can...)
On the day we were going to make it (and by we I mean three of us as my brother helped too) we all piled into the fairly small kitchen and set about smashing biscuits in three different ways. The potato masher didn't work initially but was helpful later on, I can't remember what was tried next, but the winner was the end of our wooden rolling pin, the star of the show.
My boyfriend did an absolutely stellar job of getting the biscuit neatly up the side of the tin, and fairly uniform the whole way through! However, rather than the 225g of biscuits stipulated in the recipe, we found we needed the full 300g pack, and even then he said he'd still have liked the bottom to be slightly thicker, so I think next time we'd even consider going for a 400g back! Oh my arteries (shudders at the amount of butter used to hold it all together...)
The mixing of the filling ingredients seemed to go great. The bowl was only just big enough!
But then we hit a bit of a snag when we poured it in to the base. It seemed that the mixer hadn't quite got all the way to the bottom... and there was a huge pile of unmixed cream cheese left in the bowl. Some was hastily ladelled out (we had enough filling left over for a whole 21cm cheesecake! I'll post that one later...) and, while I covered my eyes and peeked out nervously, my boyfriend proceeded to give the mixture another whisk... in the base.
It worked! There were a few splashed over the tops of the biscuit, but it was fine and much better mixed. My hero!
Now onto the cooking. Our oven's dial stops being marked after 240 degrees centigrade, and I needed to be up at 293. I decided to chance the 'mystery temperature' setting, which I assume was somewhere between 260 and 280. The cheesecake never puffed (the smaller, leftover mixture one did, however, a lot) but did top brown quickly, and I caught it but then didn't cool the oven down fast enough, so was terrified I'd burned the lot. Turned out I didn't need to worry, it was all fine. You can see a ring of slightly singed biscuit, but that was actually very tasty and I'd almost try to do that again...
Now, you may notice that we've changed worksurfaces. That was because it was cooked at my house and then assembled at my boyfriend's. His Mum saved us when it came to making the sauce, as the first batch went awry and was basically blackcurrant jelly (moral - stir it as soon as the cornflour gets in the hot mixture). I learned an awful lot about sauce making that I will use in all sorts of recipes now, so it was a really useful experience. I do freeze up in my boyfriend's kitchen, though, and tend to stand around like a bit of a lemon (though more so if his parents are watching), because when I'm cooking, I'm usually a bit unconventional and random, which I don't feel I can be when people might *gasp* judge!
A note about photography - our house is a 200 year old cottage with hardly any natural light, and we did the assembly at night. Hence I didn't have nice light to work with at any time (plus a hungry bunch of people geeing me up) so excuse the photos.
But that is a veritable sea of blackcurrants! Absolutely delicious. It's a berry deep the whole way across and that took two 290g tins (drained weight 115g each). My boyfriend said he'd like to double the thickness of the topping next time. Eep.
*checks purse*
As delicious as it was, I don't think I can afford to make it again for a while!
The recipe can be found here, at Smitten Kitchen. Our observations are as follows:
1. There was enough filling for this 24cm cheesecake and a thin 20cm one too.
2. Maybe use slightly more orange zest - the flavour of the filling was lovely, however, even though you couldn't distinctly taste the orange, so maybe that's actually how it's meant to be.
3. Really check all your cream cheese has mixed in properly before pouring it in.
4. Thick toppings are good.
5. If you want nice thick biscuit base, you're more likely to want 300-400g of biscuits (being Brits, we used Digestive biscuits, not Graham crackers) rather than the 225g in the recipe.
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