I do love a cheesecake! Baked or non baked. It’s all in the ‘buttery biscuit base’. Now I know a song about that! 😊  Anyway.

Not sure where the idea for this came from, but certainly around the time I popped in to see the girls at ‘Darlington’s & Daughters’. Home of award-winning jams, curds  & pickles. Available to buy retail or even wholesale. AND during office hours (ish) you can pop into the factory and buy some there! Not a factory shop, but the range is available to buy for hard cash only. I will have to admit that, after I had used some curds previously and tweeted about them, I was given a couple of jars, of the as-yet-unavailable ‘Blackcurrant Curd’. Not even a fancy label yet. But believe me, it tastes fantastic. And until a release date of around August 2015 (ish), I shall just have to savour the 2nd jar for myself.

But back to the Gluten Free Cheesecake.

1 Jar of Mrs Darlington’s Blackcurrant Curd

360g Full Fat Cream Cheese

170ml Double Cream

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

50g Icing Sugar

180g Gluten Free Custard Creams (I used DS GF Custard Creams) – crushed into tiny little pieces….

80g Butter – Melted

Firstly, mix the tiny weeny, gluten free breadcrumb, biscuit mix with the melted butter and press firmly into the base of the tin. I used a 7″ quick release cake tin with a removable base. Leave this to set in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, or overnight if you are planning ahead.

Once this gluten free biscuit base has set – You’ll need 2 mixing bowls. In 1, whisk the cream cheese and the icing sugar until combined. In the other, whip the cream. But. Not completely. You only need to whisk this until it has started to thicken. You are going to whisk again and if you over whisk the cream, you’ll get what’s also called, butter. And the cheesecake won’t taste very nice. Bitter in fact 😞. Whisk then, the cream and the cream cheese mix together until combined.

To create the two-tone effect split the new cream cheese mix in half. Whisk 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract into one half. And in the other half,whisk in about half the jar of the Mrs Darlington’s Blackcurrant Curd. Again don’t over whisk. Just enough to bring th ingredients together to have an uniformed colour.

To assemble. Firstly take 1 tablespoon of the curd and place into a piping bag ready to decorate as in the picture. Then spread the remaining Blackcurrant Curd on the gluten free biscuit base. This curd is quite firm and spreads very well. Then onto this, spread the vanilla flavoured cream cheese mix and then finally the Blackcurrant flavoured mix. Tap on the work surface to remove any air holes and so the mix settles flat. Spread the mix on top, to ensure a flat surface to pipe on. Leave this then to firm up, covered, in the fridge for a couple of hours. Pipe on the remaining Curd mix as you desire. Then serve….and enjoy. Depending on how you cut this, you can get around 6 – 8 servings. It is quite rich.