Our favourite dessert to make for a dinner party is a freshly-baked, light & airy vanilla cheesecake. The recipe we posted, one of Gordon Ramsay‘s, is by far the most popular of our Cakes & Bakes series.

This week, I suggested to Justin that I’d make a baked banana cheesecake for a change. Being a traditionalist, he wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea as I was. I went ahead and made it anyway – I thought that if it was put in front of him, he’d eat it anyway. And so he did!

The secret to a light & airy banana cheesecake is to whisk the mixture to within an inch of its life. Using an electric food mixer makes the job a lot less laborious. However, doing it by hand with a balloon whisk will burn off a lot more calories and tone up the bingo wings! 🙂

Baked Banana Cheesecake

Print recipe Pin recipe

Cook Time 1 15

Total Time 1 15

Ingredients

for the base
150 g/5oz ginger nut biscuits
50 g/2oz butter
25 g/1oz Demerara sugar
for the cake
400 g/14oz cream cheese
125 g/4½oz low fat plain yoghurt
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 medium-sized very ripe bananas
180 g/6½oz caster sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/Gas mark 3
Grease a 20cm/8in deep, spring-form cake tin
In a food processor, grind the ginger nut biscuits making sure there are no lumps
In a medium-sized saucepan on a low heat, add the butter & Demerara sugar and stir until the butter is melted and sugar has dissolved
Remove from the heat, add the ground ginger nuts and mix
Put the mixture into the cake tin and press firmly & evenly into the base using the back of a spoon
Put the tin into the fridge while you make the cake mixture
In a food mixer, using the balloon whisk attachment, mix the cream cheese and yoghurt on a high speed setting for 3 minutes until aerated
In the food processor that was used for grinding the ginger nuts (no need to clean it out between the two stages), purée the bananas
Add the banana purée to the cheese & yoghurt mixture and whisk on a low speed for a minute
In a measuring jug, whisk the eggs before adding it to the cake mixture in 2 stages, whisking after each addition
Add the vanilla essence to the mix then add the caster sugar and whisk until well blended, light & airy
Remove the cake tin from the fridge and cover the bottom & sides with a double layer of tin foil
Pour the cake mixture into the tin, over the ginger nut base and place the tin into a deepish baking tray
Add water to the tray, to a level about 1.5cm below the rim
Carefully put the tray containing the cake tin into the oven and bake for 75 minutes
Remove from the oven, take the cake tin out of the water bath and allow to cool for 10 minutes
Remove the cake from the tin, allow to cool for a further 20 minutes before chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight.