Bake it Fair – Creamy Mochaccino Cheesecake

This is my own recipe for a very light and creamy mochaccino cheesecake, using as many FAIRTRADE ingredients as I could find! I combined several of my favourite cheesecake recipes to come up with it and it’s mighty delicious. You can taste the chocolate and the coffee but its mild enough that the 5 year old loves it too!

I am blogging this recipe in support of the fairtrade cause and as part of the Tots100 “Bake it Fair” competition. I am pleased that I managed to use 5 different fairtrade certified ingredients in this recipe. You can find out more about Fairtrade products here

For the Base
250g Chocolate chip cookies (hard crunchy ones – not soft bakes)
125g Unsalted Butter

For the Topping
125g Soft Cream Cheese
250g Mascarpone
40g Fairtrade Icing Sugar (I used Tate & Lyle)
40g Fairtrade Cocoa (I used Cadbury)
300ml Whipped Double Cream
2 tbsp Ground Fairtrade Coffee (I used Starbucks)
6 tbsp Boiling water
2 tsp Gelatine
1 Bar of Fairtrade Chocolate (I used Green & Blacks)
1 Fairtrade Banana

1. Crush the biscuits and mix with the butter until thoroughly combined and almost doughy. (I used a food processor as it only took a few seconds that way!)
2. Push the biscuits flat into the bottom of a cake tin & refridgerate for half an hour.
   (If short on time, ten minutes in the freezer should do the trick!)
3. Using a cafetiere, brew the Fairtrade coffee and water for 4 minutes & plunge. Pour the coffee into a saucepan (make sure you leave the grounds behind – you don’t need them anymore).
4. Bring the coffee to just below a simmer and sprinkle on the gelatine. Stir continuously until the gelatine dissolves. Once disolved, remove from heat and set aside to cool.
5. Whilst biscuit base is chilling and coffee/gelatine mix is cooling. In a clean bowl, mix the soft cream cheese, mascarpone, Fairtrade cocoa powder and Fairtrade icing sugar, together in an electric mixer or food processor.
6. Once cool, add the coffee/gelatine mix to the creamy chocolatey mix. Add the whipped cream also and mix thoroughly.
7. Dip a finger in and taste! You should be able to taste the coffee and the chocolate.
8. Pour mixture on top of chilled base and put in the refridgerator. Leave for several hours or overnight.
9. Grate or curl the Fairtrade Chocolate and sprinkle on top of the cheesecake
10. Serve with slices of Fairtrade Banana (optional)