Vanilla Malted Milk Cheesecake

Whenever we have dinner parties, this is the cake Isaac makes. It’s his specialty and he has been perfecting it for a few years now since finding a very basic baked cheesecake recipe in an old magazine that he ripped out and stuck into his own personal cookbook that now has alterations and changes and scribbles all over it. Everyone absolutely loves it and it always gets rave reviews.

I reckon Isaac’s stroke of genius came when he decided to add malt milk powder after seeing it added into a cake on TV. It just creates the most delicious, scrumptious, morish, and almost-savoury component to the cheesecake which pairs with the rich, creamy texture SO perfectly. Isaac also likes to use ‘Malt O Milk’ biscuits for the base which here in Australia are a sweet malt Arnott’s biscuit available at Woolies. If you can’t find these or are overseas, you can use any plain vanilla or malt sweet biscuit.

Another big plus for this cheesecake is that it is just made in a food processor. First the base then the filling, without even needing to clean the bowl in between. Then it’s baked to perfection in one step, cooled and served. Super easy.

This vanilla malted milk cheesecake is truly something special and I hope you guys get as much joy out of it as Isaac does when he makes it, and as much as I do when I eat it!

Happy baking!

Isaac (and Mel!) :)

Vanilla Malted Milk Cheesecake

Serves lots

Ingredients:

300g sweet malt biscuits

100g butter, melted

1 kg full-fat cream cheese

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tbs vanilla extract

2 tsp cornflour

3 eggs

1 generous cup malted milk powder

Icing sugar to dust

Method:

Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius (fan-forced)

Line the bottom of a 20-22cm springform cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides with cold butter generously.

Place biscuits and melted butter into a food processor and pulse until biscuits are in a fine crumb and butter is combined.

Press biscuit crumb into the bottom on the cake tin. You can use your hands or the bottom of a flat drinking glass to firmly press biscuits into the base. Place into the fridge to set a little.

Place cream cheese, malt powder, sugar, vanilla, corn flour and eggs into the same processor and process until smooth. You might need to scrape down sides so there's no lumpy bits of cream cheese.

Pour cream cheese mixture over the biscuit base and bake for about one hour and ten minutes until lightly golden brown and the last bit of wobble has gone from the middle of the cake.

Crack the oven door open and stick a folded up tea towel in the door so it keeps it ajar by a good few centimetres (5 or so cm). Cool the cake like this for around two hours. Then place into the fridge to go cold for at least another two hours but ideally four.

Gently unlatch the springform pan and if you can, slide the cake off the base. This is a bit tricky so you can just leave it on the cake pan base if it's too nerve-wracking!

Dust with icing sugar and serve.