Christmas Mulled Wine and Cranberry Quark Cheesecake

These are seriously incredible and served in little pots makes them a delightful Christmas and winter pudding!

I give you my Christmas cranberry mini cheesecakes.

I love the decorated food boxes (from IKEA) for a dinner party and I think the glass cups really shows off how cute they are for a family pudding. I love looking at the cranberry mulled wine topping sink slightly into the creamy goodness. I love looking at the layers. Making small portions is also really cute and stops those like me eating a lot!

Makes about 6-8 mini cheesecakes in small glass cups. Double the recipe for a large 8inch cheesecake. I think mini cheesecakes work so much better.

Ingredients

Cranberry sauce
– 200ml mulled wine
– 400g fresh cranberries
– 4 tablespoons of sugar
– half a teaspoon of cinnamon
– half a teaspoon of mixed spice

Cheesecake part
– 50g unsalted butter
– 200g shortbread biscuits
– 1 teaspoon of ground ginger
– 250g Quark vanilla (if using plain Quark add a teaspoon of vanilla extract)
– 60g caster sugar
– zest and juice of 1 lemon (save a bit of zest to decorate with)
– 150ml of double cream
– (optional) Mint leaves to garnish if you accidentally add all the zest earlier on

Method

– To make the mulled wine cranberry part put the cranberries, mulled wine, sugar, cinnamon and mixed spice in a pan and soften gently on a low-medium heat. Taste a little and if you want it sweeter add a bit more sugar. I like leaving it slightly sharp to go with the sweet cheesecake. Once the cranberries are all mushy but while some are still holding their shape take off the heat and allow to cool.

– Melt the butter gently and take off the heat.
– Crush the shortbread biscuits. I put the shortbread in a plastic bag and bashed it with a rolling pin. 
– Put the biscuit crumbs in a bowl with the ground ginger and add the melted butter and stir all the biscuits are coated in the butter. You can add a little freshly grated ginger too if you want to boost the ginger flavour.
– Put two tablespoon or three in each of the of the cases or glasses to make a good layer and push down. Put in the fridge for 20-30minutes
– In a bowl cream together the Quark cream cheese and caster sugar until the sugar is mixed in.
– Grate the lemon to get the zest, save some for decoration and add the rest, then squeeze the juice in to the cream cheese mixture with the zest.
– Mix in well.
– Lightly whip the double cream by hand until it starts to thicken and then add it to the cream cheese and lemon mixture. Stir in well.
– Take the bases out of the fridge and spoon the cream cheese mixture on top leveling it out.
– Put the cheesecakes back in the fridge and leave for at least 1 hour until the cheese part has set.
– When you are ready to serve top the cheesecake with a tablespoon of cranberry mix and enjoy!

If you want it to try something more luxurious reheat the cranberries until they are warm and serve over the cheesecakes straight away. The heat will melt everything a little so don’t add it all if you want to save some for later.

The lovely Lake District Dairy Company sent me a gorgeous bag with Quark in it and a Christmas apron!

I loved the cheesecakes and they taste amazing the day after you made them too. If you manage to keep any that long! I love that the colour from the cranberries had started to colour the quark and cream. The little bits of lemon zest are very cute too.

 Delicious!

I was sent the Quark to use but all recipes and photographs are my own creation.