Raspberry and mascarpone cheesecake
Last year I made a cheesecake for my friend Mishka’s birthday. I based the measurements on a recipe for white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake from the Philadelphia website, but changed the ingredients to suit my tastes. I am not a big fan of chocolaty cheesecakes, I think the best cheesecakes are the simplest ones and I find that chocolate overpowers the subtle cheese flavour; if I wanted a chocolate cake then that is what I would make. The furthest I will stretch with embellishments is to use some berries or a squeeze of lemon and some zest.
Since it was a birthday, I wanted to make something special, hence the mascarpone. It would work just as well to substitute extra cream cheese, but the rich and creamy mascarpone does add an extra dimension (and a little sophistication) which is complemented perfectly by the raspberries.