Lilly Wexper’s Famous Cheesecake
My first proper girlfriend Jill’s mum Lil made the best cheesecake I have ever eaten – real London Jewish cheesecake – not the ersatz American cream cheesecake that seems ubiquitous today. Mind you, having said that, I do love a good Philadelphia cream cheesecake – like my mum made and my sister Tanya still makes today – but that’s an altogether different animal. Lil’s cheesecake was famous, particularly with our group of friends, and as a good Jewish mum she delighted in plying us teenagers with food. Lil and Jill’s dad Dave were amongst the most welcoming and tolerant of parents too, so we always liked going round to Jill’s.
We are still in touch some fifty years later – that’s half a century already and hard to believe – and met recently online with a group of friends from the same era. A subsequent conversation about the meaning of Jewish food (prompted by Jay Rayner’s piece on Claudia Rosen – see link below) reminded me of Lil’s cheesecake and Jill sent me the recipe – pictured above. It’s the first bit of baking I’ve done in I don’t know how long, being more of a savoury cook myself, but it was a joy to make and it tastes great. So thank you Jill, and here’s to you Lil, baking this brought back a host of great memories.
Ingredients
– 10/200g finger Madeleines or 5 trifle sponges or 8 digestives & 60g butter
– 500g tub of Fromage Blanc / Curd Cheese
– 125g sugar
– 4 Eggs
– 15g self-raising flour
– 125g pot of yogurt or sour cream
– squeeze of lemon.
Method
Butter the inside of a 20cm spring clip cake tin.
Press madeleines into the base of the tin. (if using biscuits, crush them finely, melt the butter with the crumbs, press into the base of tin and chill)
Beat the sugar into the cheese, and beat in the egg yolks one at a time.
Add flour, then yogurt and squeeze of lemon.
Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into the cheese mixture.
Pour into cake tin and spread level
Bake in the centre of a pre-heated oven at gas mark 3 / 150C for 1 hour, then turn off the oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes.
Run a knife around the side to loosen before removing from tin.
Nomad Si 