Baked Orange and Gran Marnier cheesecake
So I thought I'd share a few more recipes commissioned for a quarterly lifestyle magazine. It's always a challenge working to a seasonal brief in advance- I'd hoped to be able to pick up some early season blood oranges that would continue through the magazine's spring run, but instead used these (also in season navel oranges which are just as tasty, not so zingy or pretty, but proper flavourful citrus nonetheless. I used our Haze and Alia food photography backgrounds in these photographs.
I’ve used Navel Oranges in this recipe, a relation to the blood orange, they have amazing flavour, they’re seedless and are bang in season right now.
Ingredients
- 750g Cream Cheese
- 150ml Sour Cream
- 180g Caster Sugar
- 2 Heaped Tbsp Flour
- 3 Large eggs
- 2 oranges
- 50ml Gran Marnier
- 150g thick cut marmalade
For the base
- 250g Gingernut biscuits, pulsed in a food processor (not too fine!)
- 125g unsalted butter, melted
Method
Grease a 20cm Cake tin and line the base with parchment.
Combine the biscuit crumb with the melted butter and press firmly into the base of the cake tin, leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to set.
Add the cream cheese to a large mixing bowl, slowly beat in the caster sugar a little at a time until smooth and glossy. Sift and stir in the flour until smooth. Grate one of the blood oranges with a fine grater and add the zest to the mix along with the Gran Marnier. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk the eggs and then incorporate to the cream cheese mix using the whisk, adding the eggs gradually until well combined. Stir in the sour cream.
Pour the mix into the cake tin and bake at 180C for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 110C for a further 25-30 minutes until it’s just set (a slight wobble is fine as it will continue to set whilst cooling). Turn off the oven and leave to cool with the door ajar for a couple of hours before placing in the fridge.
For the topping, cut away the peel from the blood oranges and slice into rounds, pat dry with kitchen paper and arrange on top of the cheesecake. Warm the conserve in a saucepan with a little hot water to create a hot syrup. Remove the cheesecake from the cake tin and place onto a serving plate, pour over the syrup and return to the fridge for at least ten minutes to set before serving.
