Black Forest Cheese Cake

Crumb Crust

250 gm Chocolate biscuits
125 gm butter

Filling

½ Cup water
1 tblsp Gelatine
250 gm packet cream cheese
¾ cup sugar
300ml thickened cream
1tblsp lemon juice
425 gm can pitted black cherries

Topping

1tblpsp cornflour
1tblsp rum
1tbspn sugar

Crush biscuits and mix with melted butter. Press into base and sides of 20cm springform pan.
Refrigerate while making the filling

Have cream cheese at room temperature. Beat with sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Sprinkle gelatine over cold water and dissolve over hot water. (I put it in the microwave for a few seconds). Add to the cream cheese mixture beat well and then fold in the whipped cream. Drain the cherries and reserve ¾ cup of the syrup.
Spoon 1/3  of the filling over the base and arrange half the cherries over it. Add another 1/3 of the cheese mixture on top and arrange the rest of the cherries evenly on it. Top evenly with the rest of the filling. Refrigerate till firm.

For the topping
Place sugar with the reserved juice in a saucepan. Mix the cornflour with a little of the cold juice so that lumps do not form when heating. Stir the juice and sugar over heat and gradually add the cornflour mixture. Stir till boiling, remove from the heat and add the rum. Stir for a few minutes and allow to cool slightly. Pour on top of the cheese cake and swirl lightly with a spoon to make a pattern on top.

If you wish you can pipe whipped cream around the edge but I think there is probably enough cream in the cheesecake!

Note. For Christmas in 2014 and to feed over 30 people I made 3x the mixture and put in two springform pans 23cm and 25cm.