Marbled cheesecake and poppy seed cake

A wonderful combination of cheesecake and poppy seed cake in one bake! This time, instead of two even layers, the batters are marbled together – no shortcrust base needed. The cake is simply finished with a light icing on top. Moist, rich and wonderfully festive! It’s delicious and… you don’t need to bake two separate cakes for Christmas ;). Highly recommended!

Ingredients for cheesecake layer:

• 1 kg full-fat or semi-fat curd cheese (or cream cheese), finely ground
• 5 large eggs
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 125 ml (½ cup) double cream
• seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 16 g vanillin sugar
• 20 g vanilla custard powder (or cornflour)

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Place the cheese, eggs, sugar, vanilla custard powder (or cornflour) in a mixing bowl and blend until smooth. Add the cream and mix briefly until combined.

Ingredients for poppy seed mixture:

• 400 g poppy seeds
• 80 g light brown sugar
• 80 g dried cranberries
• 40 g walnuts, chopped
• 80 g runny honey
• 2 teaspoons almond extract or almond flavouring
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
• 70 g candied orange peel
• 2 large eggs

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Cover the poppy seeds with boiling water and leave to cool, then drain well and grind twice using a fine mincer plate. (Alternatively, simmer for 20 minutes, drain, cool and grind.) You can also use ready-ground poppy seeds – simply cover with boiling water, cool and squeeze out excess liquid.

Mix the ground poppy seeds with all remaining ingredients except the eggs. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs, then add them to the poppy seed mixture and mix until combined.

Assembly:

Line a 23 x 33 cm baking tin with parchment (base and sides). Spoon alternating dollops of cheesecake and poppy seed mixture side by side until the base is covered. Add another layer, alternating again (cheesecake over poppy, poppy over cheesecake), until both mixtures are used up. Gently level the surface.

Bake at 180°C for about 60 – 70 minutes. Leave to cool in the oven with the door slightly ajar, then remove and cool completely.

Ingredinets for icing:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2 – 3 tablespoons hot water or lemon juice

Mix until smooth. Adjust the consistency by adding a little more water (if too thick) or icing sugar (if too thin). Drizzle over the cooled cake.

Enjoy!