Recipe: Kingston Cheesecake

If you spent your childhood in Australia, you will recall the excitement of the opening of a packet of Arnotts Assorted Creams. Everyone had their favourite, I was (and still am) very fond of a shortbread cream but my first pick was always a kingston.

A few years ago someone introduced me to the idea of a super kingston - formed by sandwiching two Anzac biscuits together with Nutella. It is pretty darn delicious and as I made a batch of Anzac biscuits this week I remembered it and it inspired me to create this cheesecake.

This isn't so much an invention as a combination of existing recipes. The base is a standard Anzac biscuit which I got from a Woman's Weekly cookbook and the Nutella cheesecake is a Valli Little recipe from the April Delicious Magazine. However I will take credit for combining them into one decedent dessert.

A couple of tips. To make getting your cheesecake out of the pan and off the baking paper easier, I put the base of the tin in upside down and rather than cutting the paper to size, do a square of paper (so the the edges stick out of the tin). You will need someone to give you a hand as you have to lift the base up a bit to get it to lock into place but it forms a flat base rather than the little dip.

When you take it out of the tin, you can then use the corners of the baking paper to lift the cake onto your serving plate, then you just roll the paper up underneath the cake and it comes out smoothly as shown in the picture. Hopefully that makes sense, let me know in the comments if it doesn't.

Finally, I got a great tip from the cream cheese packet that I've included in the recipe below which is to have a bowl of hot water in the base of the oven as you cook. It stops the crust from burning by keeping the oven a bit more moist.

Kingston Cheesecake

Base
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
125g butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Filling
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tbs plain flour
500g cream cheese (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
300ml thickened cream
200g Nutella


Preheat oven to 140oC. Grease a 23cm springform tin and line with baking paper.

Combine oats, flour, sugar and coconut in a large bowl.

Combine butter, golden syrup and water in a small saucepan, stir over a low heat until smooth, stir in bicarb soda.  Mix into the dry ingredients.

Press the mix evenly into the base of the tin and up the sides leaving about a 1cm gap to the top of the tin (it will puff up to the top of the tin as it bakes). Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Using an electric mixer, beat sugar, flour and cream cheese for 3-4 minutes until smooth. Add the vanilla, eggs and cream and beat for 1-2 minutes or until combined. Add the Nutella and beat for 2-3 minutes until smooth.

Pour the mix into the tin, it should fill to near the top of the biscuit mix.

Place into the center of the oven and put a bowl of hot water on the bottom of the oven. Bake for 1 hour or until almost set in the centre. Turn off the oven and leave with the door slightly ajar for 2 hours or until cooled completely.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or preferably overnight.