Blue Cheese Walnut Cheesecake

Don’t be fooled by the name. This is fluffy and savoury, more of a flan than a sweet dessert, and can be used almost as a dip. It is an adaptation of a recipe torn out of a random flier years ago. It looked interesting and I thought my husband would like it, as he’s a fan of stinky cheeses. Finally one day without planning I had all the right ingredients in the house (allowing for my usual tweaks) so I made it. THEN I looked at the bottom and saw that it made 26 servings. Oops. Next time I refined my tweaks and reduced quantities to make it more manageable. It’s still large enough for a small party, easily making 12 portions.

Ingredients:

7 or 8  ounces	Cream cheese
4 ounces	Crumbly blue cheese, e.g. Perl Las
½ cup	Plain yogurt
1	Egg
Dash	Pepper
Big ½ cup	Plain yogurt (yes, more!)
8-12	Walnut halves
¼ cup	Chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325F/170C/Gas mark 3.
2. Grease small springform pan (mine is 6 ½ inches).
3. Beat together cheeses until there are no distinguishable lumps of blue cheese.
4. Add yogurt; mix until well blended.
5. Add egg and pepper, beating until no traces of yolk show.
6. Pour into baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes, until centre is fairly set, with edges starting to brown.
7. Remove from oven and rest on a wire rack for 5 minutes. It’s ok if the top surface cracks.
8. Carefully spread remaining yogurt on top. Don’t try to cover the whole surface, but do try to make it fairly smooth.
9. Return to oven and bake an additional 5 minutes. It won’t look cooked!
10. Remove from oven for the last time and rest on wire rack for 10 minutes.
11. Carefully run a knife (e.g. palette knife) around the edge of the pan to loosen.
12. Cool on the rack for another hour.
13. Refrigerate 8 hours/overnight .
14. Just before serving, transfer to serving plate.
15. Remove the sides of the pan.
16. Place walnut halves at equal intervals around the edge of the cake. Sprinkle chopped walnut pieces in the centre, if desired.
17. Serve with crudités, salad, assorted crackers or crusty bread.

Cover any leftovers loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

This dish may be frozen (removed from the whole springform pan), perhaps best in quarters. When thawed, it will be wet and oozy. Drain carefully and serve it anyway—it’s still tasty!

Finally, because this is a lovely light summery use of cheese, I’m entering it into this month’s Cheese Please! challenge.

About Julia Davis-Coombs

I'm an American living in the UK, combining rural Mid-west ideas about food with a suburban coastal British reality. It's fun!

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Tagged with: Blue Cheese, Gluten-free, Party food, Vegetarian, Walnuts, Yogurt
Posted in Recipes