The Fancy Pants White Chocolate Cheesecake

After watching Masterchef Australia since season 1 I have always wanted to make one of those fancy desserts they make in the finals but they tend to need all this high tech equipment that I can't get my hands on so I'm going to tone it down a bit a make something easy, extremely delicious and try to make it look 'fancy'.

This recipe is simply a white chocolate cheesecake (you can adapt this to any other type of chocolate if you prefer) however I will be re-vamping the appearance of a traditional cheesecake whilst still keeping the flavours that everyone knows and loves. I left mine as a plain cheesecake but I have made it with blueberries and raspberries folded through it which was just as good too.

The Fancy Pants White Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients

200g plain biscuits (I used Arnotts Granita which are essentially plain digestive biscuits)
100g butter
400g good-quality white chocolate, broken into pieces
250g full-fat cream cheese
250ml double cream
250g mascarpone cheese

Method

1. Bash the biscuits in a resealable bag with a rolling pin or a food processor, until you have fine crumbs. Place the crumbs in a large bowl.

2. Melt the butter, then add to the biscuit crumbs and mix to combine. Tip the butter and biscuit mix onto a tray (I used a cookie tray but you can use whatever you prefer) and press down with the back of a spoon to create an even layer across the tray. Cover the base and place it in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the cheesecake.

3. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl then set it over a small saucepan of lightly simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water leaving it to gently melt, stirring occasionally.

4. Beat the cream cheese, cream and mascarpone in a large bowl using an electric mixer until well combined, then stir through the white chocolate. Cover and place the mixture in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

5. Removing your base from the fridge, cut out circles using a sharp edged round cookie cutter, placing the circle base on a serving plate. Once circles are cut out you will be left with excess crumb which needs to be recrumbled for garnish.

6. Melt the extra white chocolate in bowl over lightly simmering water, and leave to cool completely but not set. Prepare balloons by slightly blowing them up - this will be your chocolate dome. Dip the tip of the balloons in the cooled melted chocolate sprinkling over the leftover crumbs around the rim. Leave to set. 

7. Prepare a large piping bag with large nossle. Fill the piping bag with the cheesecake mixture (this may need further whipping if it's too stiff to pipe). Pipe a large mount over the biscuit bases.

8. Once the chocolate domes have set completely, pop the balloon making sure no balloon is in the dome still. Gently cover the cheesecake with the dome and serve.