Rainbow Cheesecake

There was another epic baking session at Miss Sarah's house again.  This time we addressed our most ambitious project yet: a Rainbow Cheesecake.  I had found this recipe on Buzzfeed, of all places, and thought that it looked incredible.  So we had no choice but to make an attempt.  There was a wide array of ingredients to juggle.

For the crust:

• 200g finely crushed Oreo biscuits (filling removed)
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

 Filling:

• 910g cream cheese, room temperature
• 300g caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 pinch salt
• 240ml sour cream
• 240ml double cream
• 4 large eggs
• 1 each of liquid food colours (blue, yellow, green, red)

Also needed: 9 inch spring-form cake tin.

We began by making the biscuit base.  After separating the Oreos from the filling, they were crushed, and the crumbs were mixed with the salt, the caster sugar and the cinnamon.  The crumbs were then mixed with the butter.

Mmmm, Oreos.

Miss Sarah gets to work.

The base was then pressed into the cake tin, and was then baked in the oven at 180°Cfor 10 minutes.

Looking good so far.

A perfectly-baked biscuit base.

It was then time to make the filling.  First the cream cheese was whisked until it was very smooth, and then caster sugar was added, and the mixture beaten again.  This was followed by the addition of the vanilla essence, the double cream, the sour cream and the salt.  The mixture was beaten once more until smooth.  The eggs were added one at a time, and the mixture was beaten briefly in between each egg.

That is a lot of cheese, cream and sugar!

Then it was time to attempt the most spectacular part of the recipe.  The filling was separated into six bowls, and each bowl was coloured with a different food colouring.  The recipe I found states that: "Red = 25 drops of red, Orange = 18 drops yellow + 6 drops red, Yellow = 18 drops yellow, Green = 18 drops green, Blue = 18 drops blue, Violet = 18 drops red + 12 drops blue".  Miss Sarah and I found, however, that more drops were needed in order to get the depth of colour that we were after.

Meant to be red.  Kind of mostly pink.

Beautiful colours.

The individual bowls of filling were then added to the cake tin, one at a time, starting with the pink/red.  The mixture was poured directly into the centre of the tin, and spread out to fill the tin.  the next five colours were poured one at a time directly into the centre too.  the mixture we had seemed a little slow to spread out, but the results turned out OK in the end.

OK, so not that impressive right now, but it will look better soon.

The cake tin was covered in tin foil (to prevent leaks) and placed in a roasting.  The tray was then filled with boiling water, up to about 1 inch height on the side of the cake tin.  Then it was into the oven, at 170°C for 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Ready for baking.

After the 1 hour and 40 minutes was up, the oven was turned off, but the the door was opened a crack, and the cake left to cool down in the oven for an hour.  Unfortunately for the cake, I had put foil over the top for the last ten minutes of the bake in an attempt to stop the top of the cake from browning-up too much.  The foil, alas, took some of the top of the cake off when it was removed.  Still, it could have been worse.

Could have been worse - most of it is intact.

We then left the cake in the fridge for four hours, before making the perilous attempt to successfully remove it from the cake tin.  There was a small leak in the foil (sob!), which meant that some water had got in, but luckily for us, it only affected the very edge of the biscuit base, which seemed to be a little soggy when we first got it out of the tin.  However, by the next day it was dried out enough to not be noticeable.

Looking good!

Perfect cross-section of colours.

I love how distinct these colours are.

Made it home safely, mostly in one piece.

The cake was absolutely beautiful.  It was very sweet, of course, but it had a fantastic flavour.  What amazed me the most about it was the texture - it was so incredibly light, it had an almost mousse-like texture.  Lovely!  Fairly successful for the first cheesecake I'd ever made.

I can certainly recommend trying this recipe.  It is quite time-consuming, but definitely worth the effort.

Beckie.