Recipe #17 is not only delicious but lovely to look at, as you can see.  I decided to play with my passion for cheesecake this weekend and whip one up.  However, I didn’t just want to make any old cheesecake.  I wanted to come up with a slightly more unique flavor combination than the usual offerings one finds with cheesecake flavorings.

I have been using lavender a lot lately, especially in my pancakes.  One of my most raved about recent pancake varieties is my blueberry lavender recipe.  So naturally, all this lavender I have been working with as of late sparked a bulb when considering cheesecake possibilities.  I have also heard of all things earl gray flavored being a trendy as well as simultaneously rather timeless flavor, especially in combination with recipes involving creams or sweets.  So I put two and two together and that set the course of my experiment.

I am excited to report rave reviews from the handful of people who sampled it.  This recipe is refined sugar-free as well as gluten free.  Its not lactose-free.  Personally, I don’t think a cheesecake is cheesecake unless its made of cream cheese.  While I have sampled some excellent raw cheesecakes which are dairy-free (and I plan to attempt one for this very website at some point in the near future ;-)), I had to go with a legit cheesecake (aka, with dairy) for this particular recipe (just minus the sugar and gluten).

Ingredients

For the crust

2 cups of ground almonds (you can purchase these already ground in the baking aisle at your local grocery store, or you can grind them yourself in a food processor)

½ cup of palm sugar (aka coconut sugar)

4-5 tablespoons of melted butter

 

For the cheesecake

16 ounces of Philadelphia cream cheese

8 ounces of mascarpone cheese

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of lavender

1 tablespoon of earl gray tea (literally just rip open a tea bag to get this J)

1/3 cup of honey

¼ cup of maple syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/176 degrees C.
2. First, prepare the crust. Mix the crushed almonds, palm sugar and melted butter together in a bowl using a fork.  Upon being mixed thoroughly, the ingredients will form a course meal.  Press into the bottom of a 9 inch round cake pan.  Bake the crust for roughly 12 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool as you prepare the cheesecake filling.
3. Mix the two cheeses, vanilla, honey and the maple syrup together in a bowl using a fork. You can use an electric mixer on medium speed if you like, though I find mixing by hand with a fork works just fine.
4. Add in each egg, one at a time. Mix well until egg is just blended into the cheesecake filling.  Then add the next egg, until all three have been added in.
5. Once the eggs have been added/mixed in, pour half the batter into another bowl. In this other bowl of batter, mix in the earl gray tea and the lavender.  Stir gently with a spoon for 45-60 seconds or so, just to allow the flavors to really release and meld together.
6. Pour the first bowl (without the earl gray/lavender) of cheesecake filling into the crust. Then pour the earl gray/lavender infused cheesecake filling on top.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F/175 degrees C for 45 minutes. The edges will appear very light golden brown and the center should no longer appear liquidy.  It should be mostly solid.
8. Remove from oven and allow cake to cool.
9. Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours before serving.

I recommend this cake be served with blueberries and blackberries specifically.  They pair really nicely with the earl gray and lavender flavorings.

The cake will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container in the fridge.