Honey Mustard and Blackcurrant Cheesecakes

   

 Mustard producer Maille asked me to take part in a challenge to come up with an original recipe using at least one of their ingredients, and they sent me a list of products they could send me. I immediately had an idea - I've made plenty of stews and casseroles using mustard, or could put mustard in barbecue sauce or to coat a joint of meat, but I've never made a dessert using mustard. Because that sounds crazy, right? I don't know - if you can put candied bacon in brownies a la Nigella, why can't you put mustard in a pudding?

One of the products Maille was offering was a blend of vinegar and mango puree which I thought would be brilliant in a cheesecake. Unfortunately the company had already run out of this product as they were only sending out a certain amount of each one for this challenge, so I had to rethink. I still wanted to make a cheesecake and knew that Maille's Mustard with Honey was what I wanted- I always have a jar in my fridge and it is quite sweet, with a bit of a kick - and then I saw they also had a Red Wine Vinegar with Dijon Blackcurrant Liqueur I knew I had the flavours for my cheesecake. 

Honey Mustard and Blackcurrant Cheesecakes - two ways

An original recipe by Caroline Makes

Makes six individual cheesecakes

For the base:

100g ginger biscuits such as Ginger Nuts

2 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp Maille Mustard with Honey

For the filling:

250g cream cheese

125g caster sugar

2 eggs

1 and 1/2 tbsp Maille Mustard with Honey

290g tin blackcurrants in light syrup (reserve the syrup)

For the coulis:

2 tbsp Maille Red Wine Vinegar with Dijon Blackcurrant Liqueur

3 tbsp syrup from the tin of blackcurrants

4 tbsp icing sugar

Preheat oven to 170C. To make the base, blitz the biscuits in a food processor or place in a plastic food bag and smash with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a small pan (this will only take 1-2 minutes over a low to medium heat) and stir in to the crushed biscuits. Then stir in the Maille Mustard with Honey.

Press the biscuit mixture into the base of a large muffin tin. It is easiest to use a silicon tray as you can just turn the tray inside out to get the cheesecakes out later, but a metal tin would also work.

To make the cheesecake, using an electric hand mixer, mix together the cream cheese, caster sugar and eggs then mix in the Maille Mustard with Honey. 

There are two ways you can make the filling for the cheesecake and I recommend doing both. For the first flavour, pour half of the cheesecake mixture that you have just made into three of the muffin holes onto the biscuit base, reserving the other half of the mixture.

Now drain the tin of blackcurrants, reserving the juice, and stir the blackcurrants into the other half of the cheesecake mixture, reserving a couple of spoonfuls for decoration later. Carefully pour or spoon this into the remaining muffin cases onto the cheesecake bases.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until set.

Meanwhile make the coulis. Put the Maille Red Wine Vinegar with Dijon Blackcurrant Liqueur, 3 tbsp of the reserved syrup from the tin of blackcurrants and the icing sugar in a small pan. Bring to the boil, stirring, and simmer for 5 minutes until thickened. Allow to cool.

When the cheesecakes have come out of the oven, allow to cool and then refrigerate for at least an hour. To serve, place a few of the reserved blackcurrants on top of a couple of the cheesecakes and drizzle them all with the coulis.

I invented this recipe without having any idea what it would taste like and I absolutely loved it. The mustard provided a subtle kick but the sweetness of the honey mustard worked perfectly with the biscuit base and creamy cheesecake filling. I would never have thought vinegar would work on top of a dessert but by making the vinegar into a coulis and playing up the blackcurrant flavour, this was the perfect topping for the cheesecakes.

Biscuit base

Pressing the base into the silicon muffin mould

Cheesecake filling

Pouring into the moulds

Tin of blackcurrants, with the juice drained

Blackcurrants mixed into the cheesecake and poured into the silicon moulds

After baking in the oven

More baked cheesecakes

Maille Red Wine Vinegar with Dijon Blackcurrant Liqueur

Making the coulis

Cheesecake with blackcurrant topping

Mustard cheesecake drizzled with blackcurrant vinegar coulis

Blackcurrant mustard cheesecake with blackcurrant vinegar topping

Inside the cheesecake