Festive flavours: GUINNESS PUNCH CHEESECAKE

A twist on the classic Jamaican punch, but in cheesecake format!

Welcome back to Unfiltered Flavours+! Issue #24 and the last issue of the year so I had to go out with a bang. This Guinness punch cheesecake really is the one. If you know about Guinness punch as a drink then you’ll know just how special this cheesecake is. The base is made of predominantly coconut Shirley biscuits but that subtle hit of coconut really makes this.

This Guinness cheesecake is up there as one of my faves

As I’ve said this is my last post of the year, ill be taking 2-3 weeks off to rest and reset for the new year as i’ve been non stop for the past 6 months. I just want to take a minute to say thank you to everyone thats subscribed and supported this Substack. Writing is something I’m really falling in love with and its opening eyes to ways in which I can share more of me and my food with all of you.

Im going to be running a discount sale again, so keep a look out! Have a merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Flavours & technique

For this recipe it’s really key that you don’t over bake your cheesecake. Even a seasoned veteran like me, fell asleep and woke up 5 mins later than I needed to. You want the centre to have a slightly jiggle!

Secondly, the Guinness. A lot of people don’t reduce the Guinness enough and it messes the recipe up. This is baked cheesecake so it’s slightly more forgiving but you really really need to reduce the Guinness. It’s going to seem like what’s the point but this concentrates the flavour and of course if you have too much liquid in a cheesecake it won’t set or bake correctly.

I like to use bottled Guinness and as you can see this is the amount of Guinness I was left with AFTER reducing two bottles

A good loose bottom tin or springform tin is what you need for cheesecake, otherwise you literally won’t be able to get it out. It seems quite self explanatory, but you would be surprised what people do. DO NOT skip the water bath step, this ensures your cheesecake bakes more evenly and most importantly creates a moist environment for the custard style filling to cook

You also want to make sure you’re using room temp cream cheese. It’s simply easier to work with. It doesn’t need to have been chilling out the fridge for hours, an hour will do. Mixing super cold cream cheese means there’s more possibility of lumps, which means there’s more possibility of you over mixing this and incorporating too much air into your batter. If you do that, it can result in a cracked cheesecake. So with that being said, each stage of mixing doesn’t take that long!

When it comes to flavouring this cheesecake, nutmeg is the star of the show for me. It might seem like there’s a lot but I think this is how you get that really good punch flavour to stand out. You also can’t forget a touch of cinnamon, vanilla bean paste and salt. A lot of people forget to add salt to desserts but a good pinch of salt will always bring out the sweetness

This is what your filling should look like

There’s only so much alcohol you can put into this, so I top it with a Wray spiked sort of sour cream frosting which works a treat. The sour cream brings some balance and the rum from the Wray gives it a likkle kick

The sour cream wray topping truly is sensational.

Ingredients & Method

Base:

225g coconut Shirley biscuits

100g digestive biscuits

1/2 tsp nutmeg

130-150g melted butter

pinch of salt

plus extra butter for greasing

Cheesecake filling

650ml Guinness (REDUCED down to around 150ml or until it’s a thicker consistency)

100g sour cream