Dutch recipes: Appeltjes van Oranje Cake ( Orange Cheesecake to celebrate The Netherlands new King)

Appeltjes van Oranje

The 30th of April 2013 is a great day for the Dutch nation as we are celebration the crowning of a new King.
The whole nation will celebrate the farewell of their precious Queen Beatrix and welcome her eldest son Willem Alexander and his wife as the countries new King and Queen.
As a Dutch National myself i would like to dedicate this wonderful Orange Cheese cake to the crowning of our new King.
Appeltjes means" Apples", van means" from" and Oranje means " Orange ", Apples of Orange in other words Oranges. It is used this way in a Dutch song we used to sing as children when i lived in The Netherlands.

Hiep hiep Hoera, Lang leven de Koning.

Ingredients:

-1 tub of Cream Cheese ( Phillidelpia)

- 400 ml cold water

-200 grams of tea biscuits

- 75 grams of Butter

- 4 leaves of gelatine

- 3 medium sized oranges, juiced

- 5- 6 large oranges for filling

- 200 grams of Greek yoghurt

- 75 grams of Caster sugar

- 1 sachet vanilla sugar

- 3 dl of whipping cream

Step 1:

Grease your cake tin with a cooking spray of some butter. Crumble your biscuits and mix together with the butter.

Divide the crumble mixture over the bottom of your cake tin now press gently to the bottom so it connects to all the sides of the tin and the whole bottom is covered in an even layer.

Step 2:

Soak the Gelatine leaves in 400 ml of clod water. Grate the zest of 1 orange and set aside, press 250 ml of juice from 3 Oranges and set aside. Peel 2 Oranges, cut the segments into small pieces and set aside.

Step 3:

Meanwhile beat the Cream Cheese, sugar, vanilla sugar and zest until smooth in texture. Clean your whisk or other tool you used to mix. Whip your cream in a separate bowl till firm, best is when it fors peaks without sinking back into the bowl. Don't over whip as it will turn buttery!!

Gently spoon the cream cheese mixture trough the whipped cream and fold the mixture until all is blended well together. Now add the sliced orange segments without draining of any of the excessive juices.

Step 4:

Pour your mixture into the cake tin on top of your crumble base and spread so it is all even.

Now Peel 1 or 2 oranges and cut them so you get thin round slices, a horizontal cut. Put these slice in a circle on the top of your cake and leave to cool for around 10 minutes in your fridge.

Step 5:

Heat the fresh juice in a saucepan and leave it to come to a boil. Squeeze the gelatine that you left to soak and stir this into the hot juice. Pour the citrus/ gelatine mixture into a bowl and place in another larger bowl, filled 1/3 with ice cold water ( and ice).
Allow the juice to cool this way till you can see the gelatine is starting to solidify around the edges of the bowl. Take your cake out the fridge and pour over your citrus/ gelatine mix. Now leave your cake to cool for at least 3 hours then serve with freshly whipped cream.