Mike van de Elzen: Yoghurt Cheesecake with blackberries

Mike van de Elzen shares tips to make desserts go better, and be easier to serve on the big day (Christmas!), plus shares his favourite sweet in the world - cheesecake.
 

• Choose desserts that can be prepared and easily stored for the day 
• These can include cheesecakes, panna cotta, classic pavlova. tiramisu, brandy christmas cake and brandy ice-cream or the old classic trifle. 
• Dessert that you can freeze can be handy. These could include cookies, brownies or Christmas mince pies. 
• Texture's are important when serving multiple desserts. Try not to have everything soft. Break it up with a crunchy crumble, broken biscuits and nuts. 
• Lighten the heavy creams up with fresh fruit. Strawberries, blackberries and boysenberries are in season and are perfect fat cutters. 

Yoghurt Cheesecake with blackberries 

Prep time: 30 minutes 

Serves: 6 

 

250gm cream cheese  

200gm plain yoghurt  

4 sheets gelatine  

1 vanilla pod  

2 Tbsp honey  

1 packet plain Digestive biscuits, crushed  

1 can blackberries  

2 Tbsp brown sugar  

2 Tbsp icing sugar  

1 punnet fresh blackberries 

 

Place the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water to soften for 5 minutes. Drain the water then pour 1/2 cup boiling water over the sheets and stir. Put the cream cheese, yoghurt and honey in the bowl of a food processor. Scrape in the seeds from the vanilla pod and blitz until all combined.  

Add half of the gelatine mix and blitz again.  

Crush the biscuits until crumbly but not too fine. Divide between 6 jars (about 300ml capacity) to a depth of about 2cm. Spoon the cheesecake mix over the top of the biscuit base.  

Clean the processor bowl then put the tin of blackberries in with the brown sugar. Blitz until smooth, then pass through a sieve to remove the seeds. Combine with the rest of the gelatine mix. Spoon this over the top of the cheesecake and refrigerate for about an hour or until set. Top the cheesecakes with some fresh blackberries and dust with icing sugar to serve. 

Find Mike at goodfromscratch.co.nz

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining me now is Mike vander Ellison, our residence chief.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
We are really on the countdown.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
If you're sounding tripper, you're sounding much more tripper this today.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I made it to the end. I got there.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
Yay.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
There's something about it being within sight, isn't it That
just gives you that a little bit of energy to
get over the line.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Now, I've just got to get the farm ready so
we can have a break.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
There is that too? No, Anyway, we've been loving the
four weeks of Christmas preparation, and this week we are
on to the sweet stuffs, a dessert or a little
post dinner or mid afternoon.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Treat before you have a little sleep.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Before you have it or after the sleep.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, I don't know the rules.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I feel like the rules of eating around Christmas kind
of go out that go out the door. You sort
of do whatever you want, whenever you want for a
couple of days, don't you, And then you kind of
get yourself back on track.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
And that's kind of part of the part of the
glory of it and Also, it's just that little bit
of difference, you know. It's like I can actually sit
down and have a reasonably large meal for lunch, and hey,
I'm not going to have any dinner because it doesn't
really matter.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I'm on holiday.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's truely, there's nothing wrong with a scrambled egg. That's
a on toast.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yep, yeah, delicious.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Last night we had quite a big lunch yourselves and
foes for the day, which was amazing down there, so hot.
And it flew back late last night and Hazel had
actually made a noodle salad, a Checken noodle salad, and
she was so proud of it. And I came home
and said, Hazel, I am absolutely choker, and her little
eyes just dropped.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
She was like, Dad, I make it just for you. You've
been away, and yes anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
It is so thoughtful. I tell you why I tell
Hazel to pop round to my place. I would have
appreciated that if I ever get home and someone's thought
about cooking a meal. I'm I'm an evern and I
think it does e a medal for that, so good honor.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
I'm having it for lunch.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
No good idea. Now tell me about these, give us
some tips for our desserts.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Okay, so desserts probably, I don't know, a few people
probably freak out around the zerts, but I probably find
them that the easiest because it's the one thing that
you can really truly do beforehand. So choose desserts that
can be easily stored in the refrigerator or in a
cupboard for a couple of days. So these can include,
you know, in the fridge. For example, you might make

(02:32):
up a cheesecake. Some panic cottas are really good, you know,
Panic cottas. You can probably get four.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Days out of the panic cootta before you need to
choose them.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Classic pab labor, you know, stare them in an airtight
container and then put them somewhere into a cupboard.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Far away where they don't get damaged. Tira misu. You know,
you probably get two days, possibly.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
Three days out of tirasu that some say they get
even better. Brandy Christmas cakes with brandy ice cream. You know,
you make some ice cream. You know you can make
that today. Ice cream is going to.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Last a month in the domb ice cream? Did that
s your ice cream? No?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I didn't. I made just sort of a very creamy one.
With crunchy bar crushed up all in.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
It well delicious, or you can make a trifle. Trifle
may not last as long. I would say a trifle
probably potentially needs to be eating the day after, but
it depends on how.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
How much boos you put it like.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
So yeah, and then you've got desserts that can be frozen.
You know, these can be frozen for up to two
to three months. So you've got like these could include
like cookies, we just take them out of the freezer,
fire them into the oven. They could include chocolate brownies
or even Christmas Min's pires. It's probably a little bit
late for that because we've only got a couple of
days to go. And then also texture, think texture when
you're thinking desserts. Try not to put everything out onto

(03:42):
the table that's soft. Try and break it up with
a bit of texture, so that being like a crunchy
sort of a crumble max or even some broken up biscuits.
You know, get some ginger nuts, crush them up and
sprinkle them over. It could even be like nuts, some
toasted almonds crushed up, put over something.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Texture is an important thing when you're eating dessert.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
And then also you know a lot of the zoo
are quite heavy, and dairy quite heavy, and cream quite
heavy and sweetness.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
So fresh fruit is super important. And this time of year.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
That's why we're so lucky at the side of the
world to have Christmas in summer, because the strawberries, if
we're not already sick of them, they are plentiful. Blackberries
are just coming on. Boysonberries are coming on. Blueberries are plentiful.
And then also you've got the cherries. So all these
things combined together make a great thing to lighten up
the desserts, do you know.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
And I noticed the berries an increase of cost. I
went to my little local and purchased two punnets for
seven dollars on Friday. By Saturday they were one punnett
for five dollars. You know, it's just you're just like,

(04:55):
here we go, here goes. I mean, look, I don't
know what's happening with supply and things like that.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Mike.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
You never know, do you. But I was on the
human well obviously we all love it, but a few
berries around this time of the year, so I know
rounders up.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
So yeah, that's it.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
And you know, we've got a massive berry cage here
and so although the other day there was a bird
and God knows how they get in there, but they
find a way. And you know, the blackberries up here,
and obviously we are up on litterlewise, so it changes
depending on where you are in the country. But our
blackberries and our blueberries are just coming on now, so
they in theory they should be affordable ready to go.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Mike, have a wonderful Christmas with the family. Thank you
very much for all your contribution this year to the show,
and we look forward to catching up with you in
the new year. Mike has a wonderful yogurt cheesecake with
blackberries recipe that we're going to get up on our
website today newstalksidb dot co dot in zid, Forward slash Sunday,
or you can find it good from scrapch dot co

(05:48):
dot in zid.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.