Cranachan Cheesecake

Unfortunately, I'm not Scottish, and neither am I overly familiar with whisky. I am, however, a fan of Cranachan, a Scots pudding that involves cream, raspberries, oats and honey, and of course a nip of wonderful Scots whisky. I devised this recipe from a basic cheesecake we once made at school (can't beat a bit of food tech sometimes) with the aforementioned ingredients snuck in.

175g oaty biscuits (hobnobs or own-brand equivalent), crushed
50g butter
2tb honey
200ml creme fraiche
200g cottage cheese
1 large egg
1tsp vanilla essence
3tb whisky (or more to taste, you cheeky thing)
small handful of raspberries

It's best to use a loose-based cake tin for this, otherwise it could be pretty difficult to excavate the cheesecake. Melt the butter and take off the heat before mixing in your runny honey and those crushed biscuits. This should hold together, but you can play with the exact consistency by adding more oats for a crisper base or more honey for a squishier one. Pack this into the base of your tin, and throw your raspberries on top, however many you like.
For the filling, mix the creme fraiche, cottage cheese, egg and vanilla together, then the whisky, one tablespoon at a time (to avoid the cream curdling), mixing thoroughly. Pass this through a sieve a couple of times to get rid of the lumps, and pour over your base and raspberries, hopefully covering the raspberries completely, but it's not the end of the world if not. Bake at 200 degrees for about 40 minutes, but depending on the exact thickness this can be a lot longer (mine took nearly 2 hours!) you really want it to be firm most of the way through, so give it a jiggle every time you check it.
Best served at room temperature or cold, you could stick some raspberry coulis or cream on top, or just serve it naked with a wee tot of the strong stuff

Comments

Writing CV

Let's talk: jenni.ajderian@gmail.com Mild-mannered professional Linguist by day, crime-fighting writer and editor by night. Currently protecting the mean streets of Dublin from bad content. "She's one of the good ones" - FringePig "Best. Review. Ever." - @ObjectiveTalent "This interview has won #edfringe" - @FredRAlexander "I think this is the nicest review I've ever received." - @DouglasSits "Do you give lessons? Jus askin..." - @RockyFlintstone FedEx Digital Infinite Beta blog - 2017 I worked with FedEx Digital as a Technical Copywriter (more info on my LinkedIn Profile ) and produced sassy content for their Infinite Beta blog. The tone here is informal and personable, the aim being to show some personality and attract future team members to the company. How to explain your job title Automated content checkers Technology predictions for 2018 (I wasn't too far off) 3di Technical Commu...

You Say It Best...

(originally published by The Student ) Watch any western, any black-and-white adventure film, any rags-to-riches adaptation, and you'll realise we've seen this all before. The guy gets the girl, the evil tyrant falls and the True King rises, be it Middle Earth or the Mid-West. We've seen these scenes repeated across time and space, and we know how it goes. Without the speech, the scene still goes the same way. New film The Artist proves this, without saying a word. Aside from the picture-perfect cast and a dog which will reach cult celebrity status any day now, the film addresses the transition between '20s movies and '30s talkies, and a sparse use of sound which offers a challenge to the film-makers. In one scene, uncharacteristically static, a pair of old friends meet and greet, swap stories, laugh- the details, irrelevant, are replaced by an emotive score and some close camera-work, all of which makes us feel no less connected to the...

Calgary, Alberta

Yesterday I ran around the city a bit, trying to see as much as possible for as little as possible... It was hard. The walk from Sean's place in Renfrew was long but scenic. Cold and crisp, Calgary did turn out to be mostly suburb, with a pretty concentrated centre with all your usual tourist hangouts just south of the Bow river where a lot of money can be spent very easily. Like $14 for going up Calgary Tower, $9 for a student ticket to the Glenbow Museum, and all those malls! They're all interconnected, so you could probably walk from shop to shop most of the way across the city without having to see sunlight. This is probably the idea behind the Plus Fifteen, too- a heated walkway above the streets so the Calgarians don't have to freeze in winter. The Glenbow offered your normal mix of traditional art, weird modern stuff, rooms full of the extensive and glorious history of Alberta, all 150 years of it,...

Jenni Ajderian

Search This Blog