Raspberry Chocolate Cheesecake with Lotus Cookies 🍰

Raspberry and caramel is always going to be my fav combo in the world. After reading a few cheesecake recipes, I decided to make my own! I have also made them in little glasses so you can portion control these cheesecakes. I am also loving the terrarium-feel especially if you layer them nicely 🌿Let me know if you get a chance to try it this Easter weekend!

Serves: 4 cheesecake cups

Difficulty: Level 2

Wow factor: ⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ingredients

• 200gr digestives / oat cookies

• 50gr butter, melted

• 150gr of dark chocolate (you can make this milk or white too, whatever you prefer)

• 200gr of cream cheese

• 200ml whipping cream

• 4tbsp caster sugar (I personally think you don't need much as the chocolate is already sweet, but you can always add more or decrease this amount)

• 2 or 3 handfuls of fresh raspberries

To decorate:

• Fresh raspberries

• Lotus cookies

• Easter eggs or other cute toppings

Instructions

1. Using a food processor, blitz your digestives into crumbs. You can also do this by putting your digestives in a plastic bag and giving them a good whack with a rolling pin.

2. If you are using a food processor, feel free to tip the melted butter in whilst you are blitzing just until they are combined. If using the bag-whack method, move crumbs into a bowl and mix with melted butter using a fork.

3. In the individual glasses, tip about 4-5 tablespoons worth of the crumb mixture and push it down with your spoon. This is to ensure you have a nice cheesecake base, so if you want more of that base, feel free to add some more. Repeat for the remaining 3 glasses until you have run out of the crumb mixture. Let them chill in the fridge whilst you work on the filling.

4. Now we have to melt the chocolate. In a microwave-proof bowl, break apart your chocolate bar. I used a serrated knife to ensure they are broken into little pieces. This also helps speed up melting time. You can do bahn-marie as usual or you can put the bowl in the microwave and do 10-second bursts until the chocolate has fully melted. Be careful not to burn the choc! I usually change the temp to medium-high so it doesn't burn. Once melted, set aside.

5. In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until slightly fluffy.

6. In a separate bowl, whisk the whipping cream for about 2-3 minutes until somewhat fluffy but not too thick that it looks too structured.

7. Take your melted chocolate and combine with the cream cheese mixture using a spatula.

8. Once that is incorporated, take 1/2 of the whipped cream and incorporate it with the now chocolate-y cream cheese mixture. Fold gently.

9. Add the last 1/2 of the whipped cream and fold it in again. The texture should now look a lot more sturdy. This is your cheesecake filling pre-raspberry addition.

10. Take your fresh raspberries and dump it into your cheesecake filling. I used a spatula to beat the raspberries so you have little raspberry ripples running through your cheesecake. Do what feels right.

11. Once that is ready, you can take your cheesecake glasses out of the fridge. Spoon your cheesecake filling on top of the base. If you want to be fancy you can also use a piping bag to ensure the filling is laid out neatly on top of the base.

12. This is where you can get creative. I whacked a bunch of lotus biscuits to lay on top of the cheesecake but you can do different layers! E.g. few spoons of filling, lotus crumb, then back to filling then finally crumb and raspberries on top. Hope that makes sense?

13. Anyway once you have finished decorating, let the cheesecakes chill in the fridge up to an hour before serving. You can also let it chill overnight. I would only add the easter eggs right before serving as you don't want them to become soggy in the fridge 😍

Happy Easter weekend! Hope you have a lovely time with your friends and family. Don't forget to let us know if you give this recipe a try 👩🏻‍🍳#SezPK #SezPKuarantined #Easter