Raspberry recipes from the Sunday Times

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.