Cheesecake with Cream Cheese, Ricotta and Cottage Cheese

One of my biggest weaknesses is cheesecake.  I know that it is calorific yada yada yada, but I only eat it every now and again.  The inspiration to make it this time was the fact that I had bought some cheap cheese at the Good Food and Wine Show (bocconcini, mozzarella and ricotta for $10), and happened to notice afterwards that the reason for  this is the short expiry dates on the cheese concerned.  I ate the bocconcini out of the bucket as a snack (yum!), and needed inspiration for the ricotta (which definitely would not be nice eaten out of the bucket).

I remembered that I had copied out a cheesecake recipe from a flatmate's cookbook years ago for a three cheese cheesecake, with one of the cheeses being ricotta - but do you think I could find it?  Nope.  So good ol' Google came to the rescue, with a search for "cheesecake + 200g ricotta".  I found this recipe, which seemed to be similar to the one that I remembered from my flatmate's cookbook, so I went ahead and made it.

Quark is not that easy to find here and is quite expensive, so I subbed in cottage cheese.  I also added a tablespoon of ginger syrup and some chopped ginger to the cheesecake batter, although the finished product tasted lemony rather than of ginger. For the base, I used half and half Marie biscuits and gingernuts, as I had the Marie biscuits open in the cupboard and wanted to use them up.

I was grateful of this cheesecake when I came home from a fruitless 2 1/2 hour excursion to buy skate for French Fridays with Dorie, as I used a slice for a pick me up with a skinny flat white coffee (from my recent US trip, that translates in Starbucks to a non-fat latte) that I had picked up on the way home.  I poured some ginger syrup on top of my slice of cheesecake so that I still got my ginger hit:

And the verdict?  Seriously delish!  This cheesecake is not as dense as one based solely on cream cheese, and I liked that.

Here is the recipe as adapted by me:

200g cream cheese, softened (I used low fat)
200g cottage cheese (I used low fat)
200g ricotta
1 1/4 cups sugar
zest of 1 lemon and ~15 tablespoons lemon juice
5 eggs
150g biscuits (gingernuts, Marie, Nice etc)
85g butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Line the base and sides of a 9" springform pan with baking paper.

To make the base, process the biscuits to fine crumbs in a food processor (or bash with the handle of  a rolling pin), then pour over the melted butter and stir to combine.   Press the biscuit mixture into the base of the lined springform pan and press with a spoon until the base is evenly covered.   Bake the base in the oven for 10 minutes, then remove and cool.

 Lower the temperature of the oven to 160 degrees Celsius (I didn't because my oven just switches off if I try to lower the temperature).

 Beat the cream cheese, ricotta and cottage cheese together in a stand mixer until smooth and creamy.  Add the sugar, and beat until well combined.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.   Fold in the lemon zest and juice (and add any flavouring such as ginger syrup or chopped stem ginger).

Pour  the cheesecake batter on top of the cooled biscuit base, then bake in the oven for an hour, or until the cheesecake is just very slightly jiggly in the centre. Turn off the oven and with the door ajar, leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven for around an hour.  Remove the cheesecake from the oven and chill in the refrigerator for 5-6 hours before serving (I only left it for around 3 hours and it was fine).