Butterscotch Cheesecake

 I remember as a child absolutely loving going to stay at Ellie's house for the weekend.

Now Ellie is my mother's wonderful mummy. I'm not really quite sure why all her grandchildren (and great grandchildren) actually call her Ellie but I was always under the assumption she just never wanted to be called something like Nana or Nanny or Grandma. All I know for sure is that it is a shortened version of her full name, Ellerie and that, regardless of whatever we call her, she's one of the most lovely ladies I know.

Anyway the main reason I loved going there when I was younger was all the yummy goodies we got while we stayed there.

Ellie by no means spoilt us, we weren't stuffed full of chocolate and sweets. We'd have our breakfast, then at 11'o'clock we'd always get a cereal bar (one of the yummiest cereal bars ever) then lunch and dinner but it was dessert that was, 9 times out of 10, the real treat.

My best Ellie dessert memory was making cheesecake. You know the ones you get out of the box and all you have to do is chill them. Yep, them.

They were fantastic. All you had to do was add melted butter and a bit of milk. Pop it in a tin and shove it in the fridge and in no time at all you'd have a scrummy cheesecake.

Nowadays, since I'm no longer 10 years old, I do try to push myself a little more with my cheesecakes and go for the baked variety. They have hands down become my favourite dessert.

I mean whats not to like. They're fluffy, creamy, sweet and the flavours are pretty limitless.

Another childhood dessert was angel delight. You know that instant mousse pudding you can get. Again all you do is mix the powder with milk and bob's your uncle. You have a pud.

So there I was walking around my local supermarket, dreaming about cheesecake. As you do. When what do my little eyes behold but a packet of butterscotch angel delight.

The heavens opened, rays of sunlight illuminated the isle, angels were singing and cherubs were doing a dance and the butterscotch cheesecake was born (Description is subject to a little over exaggeration)

And it totally didn't disappoint.

It looks pretty as well with its chocolate biscuit layer, butterscotch layer and vanilla layer.

It's a cheesecake my childhood self would definitely have approved of.

ingredients:

175g / 1 1/4 Cup Chocolate Digestive Biscuits (broken into crumbs)
50g / 1/4 Cup Butter (Melted)
450g / 16oz Cream Cheese
100g / 1/2 Cup Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 46g Packet of Butterscotch Instant Pudding

Method:

Preheat your oven to 150f / 300f and grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

Mix together the digestive crumbs and the melted butter and press evenly into the bottom of your tin.

Pop your tin into the fridge to chill while you make up your cheesecake filling.

In a large mixing bowl beat together you cream cheese, vanilla extract and sugar until smooth.

Now beat in the eggs, 1 at a time until well combined.

Now remove 1/3 of the cheesecake mixture and place in a separate bowl and set it aside.

To the remaining 2/3 of cheesecake mixture and the butterscotch pudding powder and stir quickly to combine. The mixture will get quite thick quite quickly but don't worry just try to get the butterscotch powder mixed as well as you can.

Take you tin out of the fridge and spread the butterscotch flavoured cheesecake evenly over the crumb base.

Then evenly spread the 1/3 of vanilla cheesecake over the top of that.

Bake your cheesecake for 50 minutes. Once the time is up switch of your oven but leave the cheesecake in the oven with the door closed for 1 hour. The open the door of the oven and allow the cheesecake to cool fully. This helps to keep naughty surface cracks away.

You will need to leave it to cool for at least 5 hours, but I always think cheesecake tastes best the day after you make it.