Baking
57 recipes
Look at that cake! The stunning picture of this cake in the Good Food section of the SMH of this cake caught my eye straight away - by Karen Martini in 2014.
Pink peppercorns are unrelated to black peppercorns, and have a distinctive floral note as well as peppery, and they are a wonderful match with strawberries. I didn’t have the right sized tin, so I split the recipe into two different smaller-sized tins, and it worked easily - I watched the cooking time closely and took them each out as they firmed up with a slight wobble still.
The cake has a few steps involved, none of them too tricky. This would be a great birthday cake for the cheesecake lovers, or a special occasion in the centre of the table with how beautiful it looks.
Serves 8. V.
Pictured: Strawberry pink peppercorn mascarpone cheesecake
Ingredients
- 250g digestive biscuits
- 50g unsalted butter, melted
- 310g castor sugar
- 500g strawberries, hulled and halved if too large
- 1 tsp pink peppercorns, crushed (at specialist food stores like Norton St Grocer)
- ½ a vanilla bean, cut in slivers
- ½ lemon, juiced and zest finely grated
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- Pinch salt
- 250g mascarpone
- 4 large eggs
- 100ml sour cream
- 50ml cream
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced or 200°C conventional.
Put the strawberries, the peppercorns and the slivers of vanilla bean into an ovenproof dish. Scatter over 150g of the sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes - the strawberries should be holding their shape, but softened and sitting in syrup. I often do this step even a day or two earlier as they keep well in the fridge in a sealed container, and I keep the required remaining syrup and strawberries to spoon over when I serve the cake.
Grease and line a 25-centimetre spring-form cake tin. Or you can split between two smaller sized spring form tins – just watch the cooking time as it will slightly shorter.
Biscuit base -
Process the biscuits in a food processor to a fine crumb. Transfer to a bowl, add the melted butter and 40g of the castor sugar and mix quickly and well until combined. Press the mixture into the base of the tin (or across the two tins) in an even layer. Chill while you make the filling.
Reduce the oven to 150°C fan-forced or 170°C conventional.
Filling -
Set up a food processer - place the lemon zest, vanilla extract and remaining 120g of castor sugar in and process until combined. Add the flour, salt and mascarpone cheese and process for a few seconds. Add the eggs and lemon juice and process until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add the sour cream and cream, and pulse until combined, but don't overwork.
Place half the strawberries on the biscuit base, draining excess syrup to keep the base from becoming soggy.
Pictured: Strawberry pink peppercorn mascarpone cheesecake – biscuit base ready
Pour the filling over the top, shaking gently to settle, and bake for 40-50 minutes. It can be 35 minutes for a smaller tin. Once cooked, the mix should have a firm wobble to it.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
Pictured: Strawberry pink peppercorn mascarpone cheesecake – out of the oven
To serve, place remaining strawberries on top, spoon over some syrup
Pictured: Pink Peppercorns
Dietary preferences
- Vegetarian
