This recipe is not perfectly healthy by any means, but it has about half the fat of a regular cheesecake recipe and is almost foolproof. I’ve adapted it from one of the popular ones on Taste.com (http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/13505/mini+chocolate+cheesecakes).

The use of ricotta gives it a lovely light texture, that becomes more firm the longer the cake is refrigerated (if it lasts that long!).

Basic Baked Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients 

Base

• 200g biscuits of your choice
• 70g melted unsalted butter

Filling

• 250g light cream cheese
• 1/2 cup light ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method

1. Process the biscuits until fine, combine with the melted butter and bake in a 24cm spring form cake pan for 12 minutes at 170 degrees C. Set aside to cool slightly.
2. To make the filling, beat the cream cheese, ricotta, eggs, flour and vanilla essence until smooth. Pour on top of the base and bake at 170 degrees for 15 minutes or until firm. Chill overnight in the fridge.

Caramel Cheesecake 

Make the basic cheesecake recipe, but add 2/3 can of Top n Fill Caramel and 100g crushed macadamia nuts to the filling mixture.

Nutella Cheesecake

Make the basic cheesecake recipe, but use chocolate ripple biscuits for the base and add 200g nutella to the filling mixture.