Baked Caramel Cheesecake

Cheesecake is definitely my favorite type of cheesecake. Once upon a time, there was nothing nicer to do than saunter down to Cafe Greco and sit out the front, cigarette in in one hand, the other hand interchanging between a cup of espresso and a fork to shovel delectably gooey cheesecake into my mouth.

So okay, now i don't live a lazy saunter's distance from cafe greco. And i don't smoke. But. Cheesecake. Will. Not. Die. And it's a fantastic excuse for using the second half of my dulce de leche, and to win over my family at dinner tomorrow. I hope they don't mind that i took a chunk out of it.... for photographic purposes *gulp*.

Ingredients

• 250gm arrowroot or coffee biscuits
• About 125gm unsalted butter, melted
• 750gm cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup dulce de leche (Recipe here)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs

Method

Grease and line a standard springform tin.

Crush the biscuits into a fine powder in a food processor.

Slowly pour in the melted butter until the mixture can clump together like in the image above.

A note: If you want your base crumbly, use less butter; if you want it rigid use more butter but that can make it oily.

Pour the mixture into the springform tin and press across the base and sides with your hands or a spoon. You want it as compact and thinly spread as possible, ideally going about 2 inches up the sides of the tin.

Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees

Beat the cream cheese, sugar and flour together until smooth.

Add each egg, 1 at a time, each time making sure the egg has completely blended in.

Slowly pour in the milk and vanilla whilst beating the mixture.

In a seperate bowl, take 1/2 cup of the cream cheese mixture and combine with the dulce de leche.

Pour the cream cheese into the prepared base.

Pour the dulce de leche mixture over the top of this.

Using a skewer or knife, swirl the two colours of mixture together.

Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes or until the centre of the cake is almost, but not quite, set.

Leave to cook in the tin for 20 minutes, then refrigerate for 6 hours.

Serve with additional dulce de leche.