Last month, for my birthday, I was lucky enough to be taken to the Intercontinental Hotel for tea. There was a whole selection of delights, but of the selection of cakes there was one which really took my fancy.

It was a sort of layered blueberry cheesecake, with a blueberry jelly topping, and with a crust which seemed more trifle than biscuit, and reminded me of a cheesecake recipe I’d seen recently at My Baking Addiction.

A friend of mine is getting married in Greece today; her favourite colour is purple and the wedding colours, appropriately for the location, are blue and white. So I thought I would have a go at recreating the sublime Intercontinental cake in her honour, and the result, although not nearly as professional looking isn’t at all bad when it comes to taste and texture… the jelly contrasts well with the creamy filling and triffly crust… the acidity of the  lemon and blueberries cuts across the sweetness of the condensed milk…all my testers gave it the thumbs up.

I make no apologies for the Mamma Mia trailer… the film is complete wedding froth, the Greek landscape to die for.

This is what I did… and what it looked like. NB you will need a springform cake tin:

Recipe for Bruiser Blueberry Cheesecake

Ingredients for the trifle-biscuit crust:

• 100g/4 oz butter (two-fifths of a brick)
• 250-300g/9-11 oz/one packet ginger nut biscuits
• 350g/12 oz lemon loaf cake (or get a plain madeira cake and add some lemon juice)

Ingredients for the cheese filling:

• 2 x 280g/10 oz packs of Philadelphia cream cheese Light
• 1 x 400g/14 oz tin condensed milk (get a tin rather than the squeezy packs – just pour the whole thing in)
• 1 tsp Madagascan vanilla paste

Ingredients for the jelly topping:

• 4 x gelatine leaves
• 300 ml/2¼ cups blueberry juice (in fact I used two-thirds blueberry juice and one-third damson gin… but the taste of the damson gin was still lost). You could use blackcurrant juice if you can’t find blueberry

Ingredients for the decoration:

• a punnet (210g/7 oz) of blueberries
• to exaggerate the ‘blue’ aspect of the cake I sprinkled on some edible blue glitter, which looked incredible initially but the colour ran on cutting it resulting in a slightly macabre effect!

Method

1. Smash up the biscuits roughly, cut the cake into small dice, melt the butter and mix all together.
2. Mix up the cheese filling with an electric whisk.
3. Soak leaf gelatine in cold water for a few minutes to soften.
4. Heat the blueberry juice to near boiling point.
5. Squeeze excess water from the sheets before adding it to the hot juice. Stir well. Leave to cool for about 20 minutes until it begins to start setting.
6. Meanwhile press half of the crust mixture down in the spring form tin.
7. Spread over half the cheese filling mix.
8. Reserve a few blueberries for garnish, and sprinkle half the remainder onto the cheese filling.
9. Repeat the process to make another crust-filling-blueberry layer.
10. When the jelly is cool and just beginning to set pour over the cake and refrigerate until the jelly has set completely.
11. Remove the sides of the springform tin (you may not feel brave enough to remove the base).
12. Garnish with the blueberries.

^{This post is dedicated to Hollie Law.}

Here’s the Mamma Mia trailer: