Prep time:

Cooking time:

Total time:

Serves: 6

250g Digestive Biscuits

125g Melted Butter

1 Pack of Lemon Jelly Crystals

2 Purple Sun Carrots

1 Thumb sized piece of Ginger

250g Cream Cheese

225g Caster Sugar

1tsp Vanilla Extract

½tsp Mixed Spice

1 Can of Evaporated Milk

This fluorescent purple cheesecake takes the best bits of carrot cake (the creamy frosting and spices) and ditches the worst (the baking and fuss). It’s coloured entirely by the natural hue of the carrots, but if you don’t like the purple there are plenty of other shades to pick from. Miss the walnuts? Just shove a handful of chopped ones into the base mix.

  1. Seal the biscuits in a plastic bag and whack them with a rolling pin until they are crushed, then mix with the melted butter.
  2. Press the biscuits/butter rubble onto the base of a 25cm spring-form cake tin. Bake for 10 minutes in a preheated 150°C / gas mark 2 oven and leave to cool.
  3. Dissolve the jelly crystals in 200ml hot water.
  4. Grate the carrots and ginger using a microplane (extremely fine grater). The goal is a fluffy confetti, not chunky shards.
  5. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract, mixed spice, carrots and ginger in a mixing bowl until well combined,
  6. Whisk the chilled evaporated milk in a large mixing bowl until it thickens like whipped cream. This only works if it is well chilled, so make sure it is icy cold before you start.
  7. Fold in the cheese/carrot mixture and, last of all, stir through the lemon jelly liquid.
  8. Pour the mixture over the cooled base and refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.
  9. Serve decorated with carrot leaves (which are edible, by the way) and slices of carrot.

  • words:
  • pictures: Jason Ingram

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