Orange Cheese cake

I needed an excuse for utilizing my 8 ounce cream cheese packet that was staring back at me for a while. My neighbor’s mom was visiting her & as a good neighbor decency demanded me to at least have her over for some tea and I could not think of anything other than making my special cheese cake flavored with orange drizzle.

This is one of my keepsake recipes and is no fail cheese cake. I have been baking it since last seven years. I feel really bad for not being able to remember the book and author’s name. Since this recipe had appealed to me a lot on the first glimpse and I had spontaneously scribbled it down on some bits of paper. Glad that I had a made soft copy of the scrap of paper before it was crumbled and dumped.

The season for orange is still to dawn and I found the prices of mandarins a bit steep for my liking. I love the citrus aroma wafting the whole house while baking and also it renders a very subtle flavor. One thing I like about this recipe is that the basic cheese cake can be adapted to various flavors of ones choice.

Here is the list of ingredients for the base.

Blend 200grams Graham crackers or digestive biscuits and mix with 1/3 cup of butter. Grease the base of spring foam pan (22cm) and line it with a parchment paper. Prepare a base of the above mix and press it. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the filling
Shift
2/3 cup sugar
¼ cup plain flour
¼ teaspoon salt

And in a separate bowl whisk
3 eggs and
2 tablespoon of butter. Add
8 ounce of cream cheese at room temperature, mix very well until light and fluffy and then add 1 ½ teaspoon of orange zest and 2 table spoon of fresh orange juice. I had also used few drops of orange essence (optional).

Fold the flour mix and ½ cup of milk alternatively to the above batter. Whisk until well incorporated.

Preheat the oven at 180’C and place the rack on the baking tray filled with water. Bake the cake covered with a foil for 40 minutes. Remove and cool thoroughly. The steam makes the cake very moist.

Orange sauce

Boil 3 table spoon of sugar with ½ cup of water. Simmer till the sugar is dissolved and make a paste of 1 teaspoon corn flour with 1 table spoon water. Add this paste to the boiling syrup. Keep stirring on low fire till it gets to a saucy consistency. Remove from fire and add 1 teaspoon of butter, 2 tablespoon of orange juice, 1/2 teaspoon rind and some drops of orange color.

Cool and refrigerate it. This can be prepared earlier & stored.

Carefully remove the cooled cake and slice it. Drizzle sauce and serve.

It was delicious and I and my son ate our portion before we heard the knock on our door.


For citrus lovers, lemon is also a great substitute, Refer to my lemon cheese cake.