Ever since I saw Turkish Delight for the first time while watching the BBC’s mini series ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ which came out in 1988, I’ve always been fascinated about how delicious and exotic it must have been. When I was old enough to finally try it, I wasn’t disappointed. There’s nothing quite like the light scent and taste of roses while your eating, it makes you feel as if you’ve been whipped away to some secret garden (or traveled through a wardrobe to a far off land).

This cheesecake does just that. With the light scent and taste of roses, this cheesecake will bring back all of those memories along with the indulgent flavours of Turkish Delight.

Turkish Delight Cheesecake

 

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Prep time

40 mins

Cook time

3 hours

Total time

3 hours 40 mins

 

Serves: 12 Slices

Ingredients

• Base
• 170g Vanilla Wine Biscuits
• 70g Butter
• 2 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
• 
  
• Filling
• 2 x 250g tubes Cream Cheese
• 130g Caster Sugar
• 300ml Cream
• 5 Tablespoon Rose Water
• 3 Teaspoon Gelatin
• 2 Tablespoon Boiling Water
• Pink Food Colouring
• Strawberry Essence
• 
  
• Topping - Optional
• Cubes of Turkish Delight
• Chocolate
• Pistachio nuts - crushed
• Edible Dried Rose Petals

Instructions

1. Let's start by making the base, prepare a 20cm circular baking tin (springform would be ideal) by lining it with foil and setting it aside.
2. Place the vanilla wine biscuits in a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb.
3. In the medium saucepan melt the butter before mixing in the biscuit crumbs and the cocoa powder.
4. Press mixture into the base of your prepared tin. Make sure that it's all even and pressed right to the edges. Place in the freezer to set while we make the filling.
5. For the cheesecake filling, start by whipping the cream until it reaches a soft peak with a hand-held beater and then set aside.
6. In a small bowl or ramekin, pour in the boiling water and sprinkle the gelatin over top, mix to devolve and then set aside to cool slightly.
7. Using either a free-standing mixer or hand-held beater and large bowl, add the cream cheese, sugar and beat on a medium speed until smooth and sugar has devolved. Roughly 3-4 minutes.
8. Turning the mixer down, add the rose water and beat for another minute. Then slowly pour in the gelatin mix before giving one last blast to combine it all.
9. Remove half of the cheesecake filling and place into another bowl, folding through half of the whipped cream. This will be the white layer, so now is a good time to remove base from freezer and pour this layer over top of base, making sure to smoothen out the surface. Return to freezer while we make the top pink layer.
10. With the remaining cheesecake filling, add enough pink colouring to give your filling a pink tint followed by strawberry essence (enough to taste, roughly 1-2 teaspoons). Beat until well combined.
11. Fold the remain whipped cream through the pink filling and again pour this over top of the white layer.
12. Place in the fridge either over night or for at least 3-4 hours.
13. When the cheesecake is set, remove from tin and serve as is. However if you really want to dress it up, add some cubes of Turkish Delight along with blobs of melted chocolate. Then sprinkle the sides with crushed pistachios and dried rose petals!

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