Recipe for Chocolate Brownie Key Lime Cheesecake for Aldi's Best Budget Bake

Chocolate Brownie Key Lime Cheesecake

Aldi's Best Budget Bake

I was recently sent this lovely hamper full of baking goodies from Aldi and invited to join their Best Budget Bake blogger challenge. 

Amongst the items were a square baking tin (£1.99), a set of slimline electronic scales (£6.99), a measuring jug with built in scales (£6.99), a silicone castle cake mould (£3.49 - other fun shapes available), a cake carrier (£4.99), bamboo spoon (£1.99) and a pretty heart apron (£2.99).

These, and many more items from the Aldi Specialbuys Home Baking Range will be available in store from Sunday 15th March.

As a frequent baker of cupcakes I was happy to receive a baking tin so straight away thought of brownies... I love brownies and do make them quite often but this time I wanted to play around with flavours a little and create something different. A recipe I have baked on a few occasions is a cheesecake brownie. This has a cheesecake mix swirled into the brownie mix before baking. But what if I separated the two, deconstructed if you like, and instead of a biscuit base used a brownie base for the cheesecake. I'm happy to report that the result is 'EPIC' (as quoted by my 9 year old). The combination of chocolate and lime (remember the pale green hard candies with the soft centre) already works really well.

The cheesecake element uses sweetened condensed milk with the soft cheese, as is used in the American Key Lime Pie. When I make a baked cheesecake (as with the New York kind) I'd normally use soured cream. You can see I use full fat soft cheese in the recipe, I have tried the lighter versions but find that the water content is too high and therefore makes your mixture quite wet and harder to set.

So, onto the baking... the only ingredient that wasn't available in Aldi was the condensed milk so had to pop over the road to another store to purchase this. This will be available as of Sunday 15th March as part of the Aldi SpecialBuys! Everything else you see below was bought from Aldi.

I used Aldi's slim line scales for measuring my ingredients, These are lovely and simple to use, one  press of the mode button switches between measuring dry ingredients in grams, liquid in ml. You can also switch the unit to ounces which is handy for me, as I use a lot of American recipes.

Super Slim Scales, features;

• LCD display

• Liquid measurement function

• Hole for easy hanging

• 5kg weight capacity

• Stainless steel

The bamboo corner spoon is a good design too - one side is curved and the other has a square edge, good for scraping in to the corners of square dishes and getting every last bit. it also has a silicone handle for good grip.

Recipe

Chocolate Brownie base
200g dark chocolate, chopped (69 for 150g)
175g unsalted butter (89p for 250g)
325g caster sugar (89p for 1kg)
130g plain flour (45p for 1.5kg)
3 large free range eggs (95p for 6)

Cheesecake mixture
800g full fat cream cheese (49p for 200g)
397g can condensed milk
3 large free range eggs (95p for 6)
Zest and juice of 3 limes

Handful of chocolate curls and fresh lime zest to decorate

Method

• Line a deep 33 x 23cm baking tray with greaseproof paper
• Preheat the oven to 170 (fan)
• Melt the chocolate and butter together, either in the microwave for a few seconds at a time or in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water
• Remove from the heat and add sugar, mixing well, Add the flour and stir until few lumps remain. Then add the eggs and mix until smooth.
• Spoon the mixture in to the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile, combine all ingredients together for the cheesecake mixture and whisk until smooth.
• Pour into the prepared pan on top of the brownie. Reduce the temperature to 160 and bake for 40-50 minutes until set. (don't be concerned about the baking time for the brownie, as you can see from the picture it still remains really gooey and delicious)
• Sprinkle with chocolate curls and more grated lime zest to serve.
• Chill thoroughly, keep refrigerated.

I decorated with a twist of lime and served with a dollop of creme fraiche.

Enjoy xx


I was sent the above hamper free of charge to trial the products and review. The opinions are unbiased and my own, I am not paid to write a good review. I regularly do my weekly shopping in our local Aldi.