A Yummy Dessert

As you'd have guessed from the previous post, we had ourselves a birthday party over the weekend. Offspring #1 turns 6 tomorrow so we had a party on Sunday. I decided that I just wasn't up for a full-scale production birthday party at the moment so it was a fairly simple affair - just a family lunch for 25 or so (okay, there were a couple of extras), an easy menu, a few party games and lots of fun.

I settled on lasagna, salad and garlic bread for the main course - I made two of the biggest lasagnas you've ever seen and we had just enough left for the four of us for dinner last night. Perfect! Dessert was also simple. A delicious pavlova, a fabulous new baked cheesecake and the brilliantly executed and very yellow Star Wars birthday cake.

I have absolutely no idea where the cheesecake recipe came from. It was hand-written and in the ugly binder - probably a long-ago library loan. It was next to a recipe I used at #2's christening so it's been floating around for a while. This was decadent and delicious and, unlike a lot of baked cheesecakes, it was surprisingly fluffy. It went down a treat at the party and Hubby and I just enjoyed the last piece after putting the kids to bed.

Baked White Chocolate Cheesecake
Serves 10

180g good-quality white chocolate

150g granita biscuits (didn't have them so used Marie's instead)

80g butter, melted

500g cream cheese, softened, chopped

300g sour cream

3/4 cup caster sugar

3/4 cup caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs, at room temp

Thick cream to serve (I used whipped cream)

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line base and sides of a 7cm deep, 22cm springform pan with baking paper.

2. Break half the chocolate into pieces. Place in food processor and process until roughly chopped. Transfer to a bowl. (My processor went on strike and I ended up grating the chocolate.)

3. Place biscuits in processor and process until fine crumbs form. With the motor running, pour butter down feed tube. Press biscuit mix into base of lined pan/ refrigerate for 30 minutes. Wash and dry food processor.

4. Place cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla in food processor. Process until well combined and smooth. With motor running add eggs - 1 at a time, processing well after each addition. (Again, the processor was on strike - I used the hand held electric beaters and they did a fine job.)

5. Pour cream mix over prepared base. Sprinkle chopped chocolate over top and swirl through filling (oops, I added it to the mix and gave it a good stir). Bake for 50-60 minutes or until just firm in the centre. Allow cake to cook in oven for 2-3 hours. Refrigerate for four hours.

6. Spread cream over cake. Grate remaining chocolate and sprinkle over on top (I used some milk chocolate too - the all white was a bit boring!).