Okay ladies, because you requested it, here is the recipe.
I've had to sit down and go through what I did yesterday, because so much of what I make is completely riffing on the spot and making it up according to what randomness I can find in the pantry.
This recipe has several components: the gluten-free graham cracker crust, lime cheesecake filling, glazed lime slices and the white chocolate lime glaze.
Gluten-free Graham Wafers (adapted from The Daring Kitchen)
70 grams Glutinous rice flour (check out Asian shops)
50 grams Tapioca starch or Potato flour (also, check out Asian shops)
35 grams Basic gluten free flour or quinoa flour...anything you generally use when doing GF baking
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
50g chilled butter, diced plus 3 tablespoons melted
40 mls milk
40mls or like 2 decent tablespoons of mild, fragrant honey
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius. You could mix it in a food processor, a stand mixer with paddle attachment, or just use your hands. Combine the dry ingredients: flours, sugar, baking soda, salt.
2. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients. The food processor and stand mixer will make quick work of it, otherwise take the therapeutic road and combine dry with butter until you have coarse crumbs with no visible bits of butter.
3. Dissolve your honey into the milk, keep stirring until it's all combined. Gradually add this to your dough mixture and combine till it just comes together.
4. Scrape out into a flat disc and wrap with cling film and chill for at least two hours, though you can cheat by chucking it in the freezer for one hour.
5. Because you're making this for a cheesecake base, dust with more glutinous rice flour and just roll it out to about 1/2 cm thickness and cut it into roughly 8 pieces, bake until everything is a lovely golden brown and just firm to the touch, about 15 minutes.
6. Once baked, let the crackers cool for a bit before crushing up and combining with two tablespoons melted butter. Press this mixture into the base of a roughly 25cm wide springform pan, making a decently 1/2 cm thick base and the height of a couple centimetres up the sides. Chuck in the freezer to chill.
Lime Cheesecake Filling
500g Philadelphia cream cheese or similar (this is two boxes)
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons Potato flour
3 eggs
The zest of 3 limes
1. Preheat your oven to 100 degrees celcius
2. Again, a stand mixer is pretty handy at this step. Otherwise make sure you leave your cream cheese out to soften, or it's hell to mix. Beat the cream cheese until softened.
2. Add sugar and potato flour and beat until combined.
3. Add eggs one at a time and beat until completely mixed through.
4. Finally add the zest of the limes, mix to combine.
5. Get your base out of the freezer, scrape out cheesecake mixture and fill the prepared base, smoothing and evening out the top with a spatula.
6. Place a little heatproof bowl (like a ramekin) of water in the oven. This saves you from having to do a water bath, which can completely destroy a cake.
7. Bake in oven for about 30-40 minutes, or until the centre feels just firm when pressed. You don't want your cheesecake to colour much if at all, just the barest touch of light brown, but pretty much mostly white.
8. Allow to cool completely before you even think about release it from the tin or glazing it.
Glazed Limes
This is just a way to use the rest of your limes for a cute decoration.
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
the 2 zested limes, ensuring that all zest has been removed so that the outside of the lime is more or less a consistent colour
1. Put sugar and water in pot and bring to the boil to make a 1:1 syrup
2. Slice your limes as thin as you can, so let's say about 3mm. Just try your best. I'm not very good at it either.
3. Place sliced limes in syrup, turn heat down and just allow to barely simmer for a few minutes. Turn off heat. Gently lift out limes and place them on a silpat or sheet of baking paper and allow to cool. Don't discard syrup, you need this.
White Chocolate Lime Glaze
A couple tablespoons white chocolate or like 60 grams (roughly)
1 tablespoon cacao butter (check your health food stores. This stuff is gold. You can make all manner of incredible ganache and chocolates with this stuff)
Your leftover lime flavoured syrup
3 tablespoons cream
1. Add cream to the pot of syrup from the above step, bring back to the boil.
2. Place cacao butter and white chocolate in a heatproof bowl.
3. Once liquid has just boiled, take off heat and pour over chocolate and cacao butter. Whisk until fully combined. Place in the fridge until it is thick and spreadable but not runny, about 1 hour or more.
Put it together!
Get your cake out of the tin. There is a trick to this. Release the spring form sides, gently lift away. If you can see that the crust might be sticking a little, run a palette knife around the edge to help it release. The hardest part is getting it off the base. You want it to be really chilled for this. Get a baking tray with a sheet of baking paper. Place this gently on the top of your cake, cake touching the baking paper, get your fingers under the cake and flip the whole thing over with absolute determination. It's the confidence that makes it happen. Your cake should now be sitting pretty upside down on the paper and you can gently lift away the tin base. Now do the same thing again but flip your cake with your presenting plate (no need to use baking paper).
Now, if your glaze is nice and thick, use a palette knife to spread across entire surface of cake. If your cheesecake is a little bit cracked on top, this stuff will cover it right up.
Dot slices of glazed lime across the top. Done!
This recipe should make approximately 16 lady sized pieces (as was my brief) or like 10-12 greedy people slices. The benefit of a cheesecake tart is that it is shallow, so you get a good ratio of crust to filling without that moment of going "Blergh" because there's so much bloody cheese. Cacao butter gives the glaze some pretty great fragrance and shine.
