Gluten Free clotted cream fudge cheesecake

If you're like me you love a nice cheesecake. You'll also love fudge, so what could be better than combining the two! The fact that the fudge used in this particular cheesecake is clotted cream fudge and things just got even better! When I started planning out this recipe I thought, seen as the fudge used here is our gluten free variety, why not make the whole dish gluten free? Now I'm no professional in the kitchen. Heck, if I was on the Bake Off Im not sure id even make it in to the tent! I can hear Paul Hollywood now, shouting 'and stay out.' A masterpiece this is not going to be. I'll tell you what it will be though. Damn tasty and a lot of fun.

I enjoy making cheesecakes and this one is a no-bake variety and is really easy. If you are making it for a special occasion you need to plan ahead because it will need to rest in your fridge overnight. For the ingredients you can pick the majority up from your local supermarket, like I did, however for the gluten free fudge you can pick up a packet of Bluebell Cottage fudge on the link in the ingredients list. The beauty of this particular cheesecake is that you can mess around with the flavour and still end up with something amazing. In this instance I have used Bluebell Cottage's clotted cream fudge, but you could easily swap that for our chocolate fudge. Or maybe our salted caramel variety. The options are endless. It's a lot of fun to have the kids help too (providing they don't steal the fudge) whilst you're slaving away!

Ingredients

• 320G of Gluten free digestive biscuits
• 140G of unsalted butter (straight from the fridge)
• 500G of Mascarpone
• 90G of Icing sugar
• 300ml of double cream
• half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 gift bag of Bluebell Cottage gluten free fudge (your choice of flavour)*

*2 gift bags if you want to go nuts like I have here!

Instructions on how to make a ridiculously good, gluten free, fudge cheesecake, that you'll want to face plant!

Empty your gluten free biscuits in to a sandwich bag and give them a beating with a rolling pin! We want to get them crushed up nicely. You can leave chunky bits but I prefer to crush them up finely. 

Cut the butter in to smaller pieces and pop in a jug and melt in the microwave. Be careful not to overheat the butter. Once it is all melted place your crushed biscuits in a bowl and pour in the butter, mixing it all together. 

Once the melted butter is thoroughly mixed in to the crushed gluten free biscuits you can then firmly push the mixture in to the tin you are using to create the base. I am using a metal tin that has a clasp on the side allowing you to loosen and remove the side when finished.

To make the cheesecake filling, mix the mascarpone, icing sugar and the vanilla extract in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Mix together until everything is combined and quite stiff. Add in the cream and work the mixture until it is smooth and combined. 

Take a quarter of the contents of your bag of Bluebell Cottage fudge and roughly chop it in to small chunks. Tip the chunks in to your mixture and give it a good stir. These little pieces of fudge will be like treasure, mined by your happy consumers with their eager spoons!

Bang your tin in the fridge and leave it overnight to chill. Put your feet up and congratulate yourself on a job well done so far. Maybe get one of the kids to do the washing up!

The next day, remove the tin from the fridge and take half of the remaining fudge and grate it all over the top of the cheesecake. If you want you can cut some small cubes of the fudge too and sprinkle this on.

Take the remaining fudge (if you have any) and cut it in to smaller chunks, before placing it in to a small saucepan. Turn the heat on low and slowly move the fudge around until it has melted in to a sauce. Be careful not to turn the temperature too high & burning the contents. When it resembles a sauce, take a spoon and quickly drizzle it all over the top of the cheesecake!

Open the clasp on the tin wall and remove it, leaving the finished cheesecake in its full glory.

Sure it might not look the greatest cheesecake in the world and no, you wouldn't serve it to the Queen. It's not going to win 'cheesecake of the year' but I think it's best summed up by my seven year old who, when asked to score it out of ten, confidently scored it a solid one million!