Cream Egg Cheesecake

Yummy Creme Egg Cheesecake

Seeing as March is a month all about Spring and Easter I thought that I would pick a theme for my baking this month, and as you may be able to tell from the title, that my theme is Creme Eggs! The main reason I chose Creme Eggs is that they only have a really limited run every year from February to March, so I only have a short while to enjoy them. What better way is there to enjoy one of my favourite chocolates, than by baking with them. To ease myself into the month I decided to make something fairly simple, a Creme Egg Cheesecake! The recipe for which I found here on Taming Twins blog, so make sure you check out the original, but there were a few things I did differently...
For this Recipe you will need:

• 280g Digestive Biscuits
• 140g Unsalted Butter
• 560ml Double Cream
• 140g Icing Sugar
• 2 x 280g tubs of Full Fat Philadelphia
• Juice of half a lemon
• 3 bags of mini Cadbury's Creme Eggs
• 3 Full sized Creme Eggs (to decorate)
• 60g Milk Chocolate
• 120g White Chocolate

I promise this cheesecake is really easy to make and will impress everyone this Easter, so to make the cheesecake we start with the base...

Time for the biscuit base!

To make your biscuit base all you need to do is place your biscuits in a bowl and mash them with the end of a rolling pin until they resemble bread crumbs. If you have a food processor then you can also just whizz them up in there, but I am not that lucky! Whilst you are doing this you can melt your butter carefully in the microwave, 20 seconds should do it. Then mix your melted butter with your biscuit crumbs until completely combined. Finally just pour the mix into your tin and press it down with the back of a spoon. Set this to the side for later.

Making the Cheesecake

As the cheesecake part of this looks quite complicated, I have bullet-pointed the steps to make it clear:

• Start by whisking your double cream with a hand mixer until it begins to form soft peaks.
• Chop your lemon in half, and using a juicer squeeze out the juice of just one half.
• Unwrap all of your mini creme eggs and then chop them into quarters. This part was a little tricky so I would advise making the first cut along the join of the egg, and then you'll have no trouble cutting the quarters.
• Next you will need to add your lemon juice and Philadelphia to the bowl with the cream, also at this stage you can sieve in your icing sugar. With all of these in the bowl give it a quick whisk with the hand mixer, being careful not to over mix it.
• Then put your mini creme egg quarters into the mixture, carefully folding them into the mix.
• Pour this mixture on top of your biscuit base and then smooth with a spoon.
• Cut your regular sized creme eggs in half, again it's best to do this along the join of the egg. It also helps if they have been in the fridge for a few hours.
• Then press the creme egg halves gently into the cheesecake mixture, finally putting it in the fridge to set for at least three hours. I chose to leave mine in there overnight!

Decoration time...

Once your cheesecake has chilled, it's time for the decoration, which is always the most fun part. You want to start by carefully running a knife around your cheesecake and removing it from the tin, and moving it to a plate. Then put it back in the fridge whilst you prepare your chocolate. You will need three bowls for this part, put the milk chocolate in one, and then half the white chocolate and separate it into two bowls. Melt the chocolate however you wish, I chose to use the microwave because I find it is quicker, but only melt the chocolate in 10 second bursts, stirring in between each turn. Once all of your chocolate is melted you want to colour one of your white chocolate bowls with some yellow food colouring. Next place each individual chocolate in it's own piping bag, starting with the white chocolate zig zag lines onto the top of your cheesecake in once direction. Moving onto the milk pipe the same pattern in the opposite direction, and finally end with the yellow, going in the opposite direction to the milk chocolate. Let the chocolate set before serving.

Completed Creme Egg Cheesecake

There you have it, a gorgeous Creme Egg Cheesecake perfect to share with family this Easter. Everyone will be fighting over who gets a slice with the Creme Egg on it, I can already see it now! If you've enjoyed this bake then don't forget to check out the original recipe here.

Also let me know in the comments if you have any Creme Egg recipes that I could try this March?