Not all cheesecake is born equal. Set cheesecakes are the work of devil; the lazy man’s cheesecake, with a too smooth texture and often lacking in flavour. A baked cheesecake, however, is a wonderful thing. The rich, stodgy texture works really well with a crisp biscuit base and has a much better, deeper flavour. 

 Remember to cool your cheesecake in the oven with the door open to help prevent cracks forming. If you do get cracks, it’s not a disaster! I found a tip online for how to seal cheesecake cracks and it actually works. In fact, I used it on this very cheesecake to seal a couple of minor cracks. 

• Vegetable oil for greasing
• 200 g Hobnob biscuits
• 50 g roasted chopped hazelnuts
• 110 g unsalted butter (melted)
• 360 g full-fat cream cheese
• 250 g mascarpone
• 175 g soured cream
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 175 g caster sugar
• 3 large free-range eggs
• 50 g plain flour

1. Lightly oil the cake tin. Whizz the biscuits and hazelnuts in a food processor until very finely ground. With the motor running, pour in the butter with a pinch of salt, then whizz until the mixture looks like wet sand.
2. Tip some of the mixture into the oiled cake tin. Using your fingers and a metal spoon, flatten the biscuit mixture onto the base, then start to build up the sides, adding extra mixture and working it up the tin to form thin walls. Once you’ve used up all the mixture, chill the base in the fridge. Heat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/gas 3.
3. To make the filling, put the cream cheese, mascarpone, soured cream, vanilla paste and 175g sugar in
4. a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until smooth and runny. Whisk in the eggs, then sift over the plain flour and whisk that in. Pour the mixture into the chilled biscuit case, then transfer to the oven, on a baking sheet, and bake for 50-60 minutes until set around the edges with a good wobble in the middle. Remove from the oven, cool and chill overnight.
5. Remove the cheesecake from the fridge 30 minutes before serving. Ease it out of its tin – if it resists, either run a mini blow-torch round the edge or put it very briefly into a warm oven to soften the butter in the crust. Transfer to a serving plate.

Calories: 469kcals, Fat: 30.3g (16.9g saturated), Protein: 6.7g, Carbohydrates: 39.1g (31.8g sugars), Fibre: 2.7g, Salt: 0.3g