Wild Blue Berry and Thyme Cheese Cake
Serves 8 to 10
I love to bake. When I was working in Newcastle over 30 years ago, I used to make all the desserts for the Fisherman’s Wharf seafood restaurant on the quayside below the Tyne Bridge. Three days a week, I’d drop of cakes, desserts, and pastries to be sold in the restaurant, all freshly made on the same day that I delivered them. I became good friends with Simon Tennet, the executive chef at the time. We were both studying for our City & Guilds 706/3 advanced culinary exam at Newcastle College. The restaurant at the time was very up scale and trendy. What I loved was everything was local. All the seafood came from the North Sea, and all the fresh produce from local farms within Northumberland. Even all the chefs were hired from Newcastle or the surrounding area. Thirty years ago, this was pretty innovative. Many restaurants today emulate what Simon was doing in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
One of the most requested desserts on the menu was cheese cake. I’d use a variety of seasonal fruits. I could use beautiful English strawberries in early summer, and peaches or blackberries in late summer to early autumn. Blueberries, were not so common in the UK at the time, had just been cultivated on a local farm. They were added to the winter menu one year and became an instant hit with the regulars. Now living in America, you can buy blueberries anytime of the year. Coupled with thyme, you’ll love them on this cheesecake.
And if you don’t think making your own cheesecake is healthier than a store bought one. Look at the list of ingredients for a typical cheesecake bought at one of the national food stores:
Ingredients: Cream Cheese (Milk, Cream, Bacterial Culture, Salt, Carob Bean Gum),
Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron,
Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Skim Milk, Milk, Palm Oil, Eggs, Margarine
(Soybean Oil, Palm Oil, Water, Salt, Mono- And Diglycerides, Nonfat Dry Milk, Soy
Lecithin, Preservative [Sodium Benzoate], Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate,
Beta-Carotene Color), Graham Flour, Contains Less Than 2% Of The Following:
Hydrogenated Coconut Oil, Whey, Brown Sugar, Honey, Rice Flour, Cornstarch, Soybean
Oil, Gelatin, Modified Cornstarch, Bacterial Culture, Mono- And Diglycerides, Salt, Natural
and Artificial Flavor, Carob Bean Gum, Datem, Baking Soda, Preservative (Potassium
Sorbate), Cinnamon, Disodium Phosphate, Modified Tapioca Starch, Sodium Caseinate,
Sodium Citrate, Soy Protein Isolate, Xanthan Gum, Soy Lecithin, Beta-Apo-8′-Carotenal Color.
Now compare that list with the list of ingredients used to make this cheesecake.
Ingredients:
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 8oz packages of cream cheese, at room temperature
⅔ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
⅔ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch kosher salt
¼ cup all-purpose flour, sieved
½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
2 cups fresh wild blueberries
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)
How to make:
Preheat oven to 360◦F. Grease an 8-inch, spring-form pan, and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Unwrap the pastry and dust your work surface with flour. Gently roll the puff pastry out to a quarter inch thickness. Press the pastry inside the pan and up the sides of the pan. Transfer to the fridge and chill while you prepare the batter.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese and sugar on medium speed until very smooth and creamy, about three minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you mix. Add the eggs one at a time until the eggs are fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then reduce the mixer speed to medium-low. Add cream, vanilla, and salt, and beat until combined, about 1 minute.
Add the flour and thyme leaves to the batter. Beat again to combine, about 30 seconds. Pour the batter into the prepared pastry-lined pan. Gently sprinkle the blueberries over the batter, and then gently fold the corners of the pastry over the berries.
Place the cheese on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until lightly golden brown on top but still slightly wobbly in the center. Let the cake cool 5 minutes then unmold. Let cool completely. Slice into wedges and serve at room temperature or chilled with a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar.