Nick, an avid reader on the Times and raspberry fiend, found the following two recipes in the Sunday Times in the last few weeks. Eyeing up my ice cream maker the request was to make some sorbet and when he found the cheese cake recipe (albeit changed from blackberries to raspberries) we had a whole desert!
Raspberry and Mint Sorbet
250g caster sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
15 large mint leaves and 15 small mint leaves, chopped
500g raspberries
juice of 2 lemons
Make a sugar syrup by placing the sugar, vanilla and large mint leaves in a bowl with 25oml boiling water. Leave to stand for 10min. Then blitz the raspberries with the lemon juice and add 400ml sugar syrup. Seive out the pips. Chill the juice and then churn in an ice cream maker, adding the small mint leaves at the end before putting into the freezer.
Raspberry cheesecake
80g hazelnuts
140g digestive biscuits
1tsp cinnamon
4cloves, finely ground
3tbsp sugar
80g butter melted
600g full fat cream cheese
150g sugar
2tbsp plain flour
1tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 orange
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 medium eggs
250g raspberries
180ml sour cream
Heat the oven to 160°C. Blitz the hazelnuts until finely ground and then add the digestive biscuits and blitz until they are crumbs. Mix in the sugar and spices and finally stir in the melted butter. Press into the base of a loose bottomed cake tin with high sides. Bake for 10min, remove from the oven and turn up the oven to 240°C. Beat together the cream cheese and sugar (or find someone with strong arms to do it for you), then add the flour, vanilla, orange zest and lemon juice. Mix until smooth. Beat in the eggs and the sour cream. Pour on top of the biscuit base and stud with the raspberries, pushing them into the mix. Bake in the oven for 10min, then turn down the heat to 110°C and cook for a further 25min. Then leave to cool in the oven. We found that transferring it to the fridge and eating the next day made it even more tasty! Serve with the sorbet for extra raspberriness.
