In the last ten years or so, I developed an allergy to peanuts, not life threatening but enough to turn my face to quasimodo. And as many helpful people have said since, it can always and unexpectedly escalate into full on anaphylaxis. Cheery souls.
Anyway, it means that peanut butter is no longer on my personal “go to” treat list though my youngest girl still loves it and I’m becoming more familiar with other nut butters. Peanuts are not actually part of the nut family so a peanut allergy doesn’t inevitably rule out other “proper” nuts like hazels or brazils.
The cheesecake recipe below can be made with peanuts and peanut butter, in which case it will taste something like a Reese’s Cup sweet or you could try it with hazelnuts and hazelnut butter.
Pre-heat the oven to 160C. Boil a kettle of water.
Base Ingredients:
75g butter
175g dark chocolate digestive biscuits
100g chopped hazelnuts/peanuts/other nuts
Melt the butter and process the biscuits into crumbs (not too fine. Add in the hazelnuts and melted butter and press into a prepared loose bottom cake tin.Double bag the cake tin with foil, to avoid leaks when you cook it in a water bath. Leave the biscuit base to set in the fridge while you make the filling.
Filling Ingredients:
100g dark chocolate, melted
450g full fat cream cheese
4 eggs
120g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g crunchy nut butter
Beat the cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Pour into the cake tin onto the biscuit base.
Next pour over the melted chocolate. Dollop on the nut butter and using a skewer, swirl the toppings together.
Put the tin into a roasting tin and pour boiling water around it, to come half way up the sides of the tin. Bake in the oven for about an hour, covering the top with foil if necessary to avoid colouring.
It should have a little wobble left in the centre.
Leave to cool in the tin of water. Transfer to the fridge and leave overnight or for at least 7 hours.
Although it’s a smallish (20cm diamter) cake, it’s very rich so should probably serve around 8
