Hazelnut Strawberry Cheesecake

As it was fathers day yesterday, I wanted to make a nice dessert that all the family would enjoy. This was exactly that! It went down a treat with a chorus of 'mmms' and 'ahhs'.
I actually got the idea for the recipe from here 'http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes' but instead of a tart I (obviously) made it into a cheesecake!

Ingredients-

• 250g hobnobs (oat style biscuits)
• 50g ground hazelnuts
• 120g butter, melted
• 250g mascarpone cheese, at room temp
• 3tbsp icing sugar
• 150ml double/whipping cream
• punnet of strawberry's, chopped
• caramel, to drizzle over (I used leftover dulce de leche from my vanilla and caramel cheesecake! (see here- 'http://theblondebeautybaker.blogspot.co.uk'

First off you will need to bash up the hobnob biscuits till they become fine crumbs. I just put them in a zip lock bag and smashed them with a rolling pin (great for relieving stress!) but you could use a food processor.

In a large bowl add your biscuit crumbs, ground hazelnuts and melted butter and mix until incorporated. The mixture should look/feel like wet sand. Now pour into your pan, I use a spring form pan as its so much easier to remove, and push down with your fingers to make an compact even base and push it up the sides slightly too. Place into the fridge to set whilst you get on with the filling.

In a medium bowl, whisk the cream until soft peaks form. In a large bowl beat the mascarpone to loosen and and mix in the icing sugar. Now fold in the cream. Add in most of your chopped strawberry's, saving a few for decoration, and fold them in too.

Pour this mixture onto your biscuit base and level. Place the leftover strawberry's on top to decorate and after warming in the microwave for 30 seconds, you should then be able to drizzle your caramel on top!