Blackberry Crumble Cheesecake

This is a dessert I have been cooking for years. It started as a baked cheesecake. I then added fruit. Finally I decided to put a crumble on the top and baked it again. It was lovely and I love trying different fruits on the top from rhubarb to apple to strawberries in the summer.

The original recipe was the blackberry version, so this was one of the two desserts I made this weekend, as we had friends over.

Ingredients:

150g digestive biscuits
50g melted butter

2 x 280g tubs cream cheese
2 medium eggs
1 lemon (zest only)
90g caster sugar

250-300g blackberries
85g caster sugar

100g plain flour
75g butter
50g caster sugar

Method:

Set oven to 180 degrees C. Make the base of the cheesecake by putting the biscuits in a sealed bag and crushing into crumbs with a rolling pin. Or whatever is to hand! put into a bowl. Melt the butter in the microwave or a spall pan and add to the biscuits. Mix well and press into the bottom of an 8" loose bottomed cake tin. Put in the fridge while you make the cheesecake.
Mix the cheese, eggs, zest and 90g sugar in a bowl until well blended. Pour onto biscuit base and bake for 45 minutes.
Put the blackberries in a saucepan with 85g sugar and 1 tbsp. water. Simmer until fruit broken down, but still with the majority keeping their shape and leave to cool.
In a bowl mix the flour and 50g sugar. Add the cold butter in cubes and rub with your fingertips until crumbly.
When the cheesecake is ready, remove from the oven. With a slotted spoon, spoon out the berries onto the top of the cheesecake adding just a tbsp. of the juice, reserving the rest. Scatter over the prepared crumble and return to the oven for 25 minutes.
Leave to cool and serve in a huge slice with a drizzle of the reserved juice. Delicious!