Festive Eggnog Cheesecake

 

At Thanksgiving I saw these boxes of eggnog in Tesco (below). I've never tried eggnog but remember Penny from the Big Bang Theory drinking it straight from the carton ("It stopped being eggnog like a half hour ago. It's pretty much just rum now"). I thought it would be great to use in a dessert so just after Thanksgiving I went back to the shop, only to find none on the shelves.

 

I asked someone and he went on a mission into the stock room to track some down, leaving me standing in the world foods aisle for what felt like ten minutes - but that was handy as I spotted an ingredient beginning with X I could use for Alphabakes! When the Tesco worker finally came back with a box of eggnog, he told me it cost £6 - which I thought was pretty steep, but I hadn't realised it was imported from America, and given the effort he had put in to get me one, I felt bad just putting it back on the shelf so I decided to buy it!

 

 

I thought that both the flavour and texture of the eggnog would work really well in a cheesecake, and I love cheesecake at any time. I found this recipe on Taste of Home which I followed, but substituted digestive biscuits for Graham crackers (which are pretty much the UK equivalent). I also left out the rum extract as I thought a child might be eating this (I served it as part of a pre-Christmas meal with friends), even though you can get non-alcoholic rum flavouring, as I wasn't sure that she would like the taste. 

 

I blitzed the biscuit crumbs in a food processor, mixed with the melted butter and pressed into the bottom of a loose-bottomed cake tin. I baked it in the oven and allowed to cool as instructed.

 

Mixing the cream cheese, sugar, flour, eggs, eggnog and nutmeg:

Poured into the cake tin. It only just fit without over-spilling!

I baked the cheesecake in a water bath in the oven as the recipe described. Several cracks appeared on the top of the cheesecake but I think it still looked OK.

It came out of the tin perfectly and has a really good ratio of filling to crust.

This was an incredibly creamy cheesecake and seemed lighter than baked ones I have made before - it was really delicious. I didn't think I could particularly taste the eggnog but would have said instead it had a strong vanilla flavour, but my boyfriend said he could taste the eggnog. I think this would be a great dessert around Christmas time or Thanksgiving.