At this point in the term and let’s be honest, in 2020 as a whole, we all could use some indulgence. Part of this recipe includes crushing up biscuits and chocolate bars by bashing them with a rolling pin, so not only do you get a delicious cheesecake, the process of making it also acts as a great stressbuster. Some patience will be required, though, as you wait for the cheesecake to set before you can dig in.

This cheesecake is super rich, and if like me you’re starting to feel a bit festive, you will love it. I used milk and dark chocolate for the filling, but a great adaptation could be to swap out the milk chocolate for a chocolate orange.

Calories don’t count in lockdown, right?

Ingredients:

For the base:

• 300g digestive biscuits. If you wanted to make this recipe even more chocolate-y, you could swap these for chocolate digestives!
• 150g butter

For the filling:

• 150 g Milk Chocolate
• 150 g Dark Chocolate
• 600 g Full-Fat Cream Cheese (two of the family packs). It’s important to use full-fat here, as otherwise the cheesecake won’t set.
• 100 g Icing Sugar
• 150 ml Double Cream
• 6 Daim Bars (chopped/crushed)
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 teaspoon Almond Extract

For the decoration (optional):

• 150 ml double cream
• 2 tablespoon icing Sugar
• 1 tablespoon cocoa Powder
• 18 mini Daim bars – 12 whole, and 6 chopped/crushed

Method:

The base:

• Add the butter into a pan and melt. Keep stirring so that it doesn’t burn. Alternatively, melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave.
• Put the biscuits into a zip seal freezer bag, and crush them by beating them with a rolling pin.
• Add the biscuits to the butter, and mix. The mixture will remain fairly crumbly, but that is how it should be, don’t worry.
• Press the biscuit mixture into the bottom of a 20cm deep Springform tin, and pop it into the fridge whilst you make the filling.

The filling:

• Break up the milk and dark chocolate, and melt it. You can do this either in a bowl over a pan of water, or in the microwave. Once melted, leave to one side so that it can cool slightly.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract (use an electric whisk if you have one)
• Whilst mixing, pour in the melted chocolate, and keep whipping until the mixture is really thick
• Next, pour in the double cream and whisk again.
• For the Daim chocolate, either chop the bars finely, or crush them to small chunks with a rolling pin, as with the biscuits in step 2.
• Stir the chunks of Daim into the cheesecake mix.
• Pour the cheesecake filling onto the biscuit base, and spread it evenly.
• Leave the cheesecake to set in the fridge for around 6 hours, or overnight (if you can wait that long, I applaud you!). The longer you can leave it, the firmer and easier it will be to cut.

The decoration (optional)

• Use a knife or spatula to separate the cheesecake from the tin, and then remove it.
• Whip together the double cream, icing sugar, and cocoa powder until the mixture is thick, but don’t overbeat– you will need an electric whisk for this!
• Pipe the cream around the edge of the cheesecake, and then decorate it with the chopped and whole mini Daim bars.
• Enjoy!