Right. Hadn’t planned to do another cheesecake so quickly but the chickens are producing copious amounts of eggs at the moment and Philadelphia is on offer in Tesco. It’s like the universe is telling me to bake cheesecake.

For this, you’ll need a copy of this book. “The Great British Bake Off How to Turn Everyday Bakes Into Showstoppers”. It’s a short and catchy title, I’ll grant you. The cover looks like this…

Well, it does after it’s been in my kitchen for a while. The yellow post-it sticking out of the top marks my wife’s favourite cake: Rich coffee & walnut torte. And it’s a beauty! No flour, using walnuts and breadcrumbs to create a beautiful moist cake, it’s just gorgeous. There are good reasons I bake one of these for her birthday every year.

But you didn’t come here for a normal cake, you came here for cheesecake. So, to turn the basic New York cheesecake into a coffee/walnut work of art, you’ll need…

Ingredients

• 3oz walnut halves or pieces, roasted to dry
• 6oz Hobnob or similar oat biscuits
• 3oz butter
• 680g full fat (really, full fat, accept no substitutes) cream cheese. Again, apologies for switching the units of measurement. Essentially 2 big tubs of Philadelphia.
• 250g Marscapone
• 9oz caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 180ml sour cream
• 2tbsp dark rum
• 2tbsp instant coffee

Oven to 180°C, spread the walnuts bits on a tray and bake them for 10-15 minutes. Set aside to cool. Then heat the rum and adding the coffee. Stir until it’s dissolved, take it off the heat and set it to one side to cool.

Then you’re into the usual. Blitz the biscuits to a fine crumb, add 2/3 of the walnuts in and blitz them as well. Melt the butter, stir into the crumbs and mix thoroughly. Press into the base of a 23cm springform tin (I use a potato masher for this!) and bake for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile… In a big bowl, mix together the sugar, Philly, and marscapone. Mix in each egg in turn, then the soured cream, then stir in the coffee/rum mix that you made earlier. Finally, add the rest of the walnut pieces, stir to combine, then pour into the tin.

You hopefully know this by now – bake for 48 minutes, when the time’s up switch off the oven and leave the door open a crack while the cake cools. Transfer to the fridge and cool overnight.

The Topping…

• 250g marscapone
• 200ml double cream
• 75g icing sugar
• 2tbsp rum
• 2tbsp instant coffee

Okay, so heat the rum, add the coffee, stir until dissolved, leave to cool. So far, so good. Whip up the cream until nice and thick, don’t butter it. Mix the icing sugar into the marscapone, then mix through the coffee stuff. Fold that into the double cream, then slather it all over the top of the cheesecake. Add little walnut bits if you want, but it’s kinda gilding the lily.