greta anna cheesecake

this is dedicated to my ever beautiful and talented friend kathleen.

i made this weeks ago and have been dreaming about it ever since!

thank you again for sharing your family's recipe, it will be treasured. 

step 1... 

have a beautiful friend named kathleen who invites you to her sisters baby shower and introduces you to a delicious slice named greta anna cheesecake. beg her for the recipe and voilà, just a few days later receive a hand written letter, complete with the recipe, in your letterbox! on the other hand (and to save kathleen some postage) simply follow the below steps! this is how i made it for my family recently. 

step 2... 

take a trip to woolies and purchase some ingredients! you will need three 250 gram tubs of cream cheese, 1 cup of caster sugar, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, one a packet of chocolate ripple biscuits and 60 grams of butter. cute measuring cups like these babushka ones also make cooking fun! (what a good looking website by the way! i wonder who worked on that for more than two years of their life...)

step 3...

crumb the biscuits and add the butter (melted). the finer the better but i just crushed them until there were no big bits. very technical. then line the base of a pan with the biscuit mixture. crucial step, eat a biscuit or two along the way. they do this all the time on masterchef i'm sure of it! 

step 4...

cream the cream cheese and sugar. this sounds easy but it is much harder than one would think! especially if the cream cheese is straight out of the fridge. i tried a few tactics, first the blender, then the bowl, then mum's skills. mum seemed to be the winner. we kind of went between the blender and bowl until they started to cream together. we also added the eggs and vanilla from the start which seemed to help.

step 5...

beat everything well (we later moved on to the electric beater) until at long last you have a cheesecake mixture that looks like this! i was ready to give up during this part of the process but stick with it as you will get there eventually. plus, i'm positive all of that mixing is an essential pre slice eating workout. 

step 6...

pour the mix into the tin. like this. 

step 7...

if i learnt anything during my first job at mcdonald's it was this: clean as you go. and this is exactly what mum was doing when i caught her with the bowl. and i thought children weren't to be left unsupervised in the kitchen! it is hard to resist but if you've done your pre slice eating workout then i think you deserve it!

step 8...

bake in a slow (preheated) oven for thirty minutes. i can't quite remember what temperature we had it on, possibly 150 but i may need to confirm that with my co-chef miranda. turn the oven off after the thirty minutes is up however leave the tray in the oven until it is cool, admiring it from a distance!

step 9...

once the cheesecake has cooled you are very close to finished and even closer to tasting the labor of love that is your freshly baked cheesecake slice. the next step is all about the finishing touches (pay a visit to donna hay for inspiration!). i wanted to make mine exactly like kathleen's so i melted and then drizzled dark chocolate over the slice. berries, nutmeg or just about anything you can think of is also perfect. 

step 10...

bon appétit my friends! the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived and at last you can enjoy the amazingly delicious greta anna cheesecake slice! remember, food tastes better when shared so please be sure to invite myself or kathleen over the next time you make it!