My parent’s are aiming to walk the South West Coastal Path over the next few years and so last week we were all on holiday to kick-start the journey. As we were walking loads, we were in Devon, and it was insanely hot, it goes without saying that we ate a tonne of ice cream. So in homage to all of that I decided to do an ice-cream themed bake for Father’s day.

In truth, I’m more of a mint choc chip girl than Neapolitan, but I thought that the classic vanilla, chocolate, strawberry layer thing was too good to not use for this. I also finished my Art Foundation course the other day (silent whoop!) and so after that I treated myself to a brownie cheesecake thing from Tescos. I’ve seen brownies being used in cheesecakes for years but that was the first time I tried it myself, and boy was it good. So rather than having a biscuit base for this one I made a fudgy brownie, and dare I say it I think it’s better than a biscuit base. It’s chewy, rich, and is way easier to transport/slice into as you don’t have crumbs flying everywhere!

This one has a few elements to it, but it’s all very easy to put together when broken down. For the swirls on the top I used strawberry jam which worked way better than I thought it would! If you’d prefer something sharper for the topping you could use marmalade, raspberry jam or boil up equal parts fruit and sugar to make a thick puree.

Recipe

Serves 12

Time: 1 hour, plus chilling

Ingredients

For the Brownie

• 230g Caster sugar
• 100ml Vegetable oil
• 2 Medium Eggs
• ½ tsp Vanilla extract
• 55g Cocoa powder
• 90g Plain flour

For the Cheesecake

• 1 tbsp Vanilla bean paste
• 550g Cream cheese
• 50g Icing sugar
• 250ml Double cream

For the Topping

• 2 tbsp Strawberry jam
• 200ml Double cream
• 4 Small fresh strawberries, plus extra for serving
• 2 tbsp Chocolate sprinkles

Method

1. Begin by making the brownie. Pre-heat the oven to 160˚C. Grease and line a 9-inch cake tin with baking paper.
2. Put the sugar and oil into a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk these in to make a smooth mix. Add the cocoa and whisk it in carefully, it will explode out of the bowl a lot! Finally, add the flour and whisk it in to make a smooth batter.
3. Pour the mixture into the lined cake tin and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes so that a crust has formed and the middle is goey but baked through. Leave to cool in the tin.
4. Now make the cheesecake layer. Put the vanilla and cream cheese into a bowl and whisk together until smooth. Add the icing sugar and double cream and then whisk again until the mixture is lump-free and beginning to thicken.
5. Once the brownie is completely cooled pour the cheesecake mix on top and smooth it over with a spatula.
6. Spoon the strawberry jam into a small bowl and beat it with a small spoon to break it up and make it slightly runny. Spoon blobs of the jam onto the cheesecake and then mix it around with a knife a little to get a swirl effect.
7. Put the whole cheesecake into the freezer for 1 hour, and then leave in the fridge for another 3 hours, or better still over night to set.
8. When ready start prepping the topping. Pour the double cream into a bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a star-shaped nozzle. Pipe rosettes of the cream around the edge of the cheesecake.
9. Quarter the strawberries and then push them into the gaps between the cream rosettes. Finish with some of the sprinkles and serve chilled!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x