I’ve been baking the same traditional Christmas fruit cakes (here), using my own recipe, as gifts for my friends every year. So this year. I decided to bake something different and simple; mixed fruit cheesecake that requires no soaking of the mixed fruit, a shorter baking time, and it can be served immediately after being chilled. This mixed fruit cheesecake is dense but not heavy or very dry. It has a citrusy lemon taste with a hint of rum that is perfect to enjoy with a cup of hot coffee.
Grease and line a 8 inch spring form cake pan with parchment paper.
Biscuit base
120g digestive biscuits
2 tbsp ground almond
80g melted butter
Crush biscuits with a rolling pin in a zip lock bag until they are like crumbs, then add the butter and mix well. Pressing the biscuit crumbs with your hand at the bottom of the lined cake pan. Put the pan in the fridge for later use.
Filling
3 egg yolks
30g caster sugar
250g cheese cream, room temperature
1tsp vanilla extract
1.5 tbsp lemon juice
lemon zest from 1 lemon
1 tbsp rum
80g plain flour, sifted
15g ground almond
100g dried mixed fruit
3 egg whites
35g sugar
1 tbsp apricot jam + ½ tbsp hot water
Instructions
Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale. Beat in cream cheese, lemon juice, zest, rum and vanilla extract, mix well.
Pour in flour and ground almond, mix well and transfer to a large bowl. Mix in the dried mixed fruit and fold well with a rubber spatula.
In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites till foamy. Add sugar in batches and whisk to stiff peak. and fold into the cheese cream mixture in 3 batches with a rubber spatula.
Turn into the prepared cake pan and drop more dried mixed fruit on top and bake in preheated oven 165 deg C for about 55-60 minutes. Brush cake with apricot jam
Brush cake with apricot jam and let it cool Then chill cake for 2-3 hours before removing cake from pan and cut to serve.
recipe adapted from Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Technigues with minor adjustments