Cheese please....

This weekend it's the Boscastle Food and Drink Festival- or Bostfest as it's known. Most of you probably know about Boscastle because of images of cars floating into the harbour when it flooded in August 2004. That summer I was making fudge on Scilly and turned on the radio to hear the unfolding chaos.

A year later I was working on the mainland and went up to Boscastle to see how the village had recovered. It's a beautiful village and the people there are lovely. It was hoping to head up there this weekend for the food festival but the rain came in and I retreated to my duvet.

Here are some photos from the festival's website...

I was hoping to see a Nathan Outlaw demonstration again. So instead I decided to make his yummy apple cheesecake recipe. It's not quite as he did it but was the best my memory could muster!

Apple and fairing cheesecake (serves 6)

1 box of Cornish fairings (or make your own- see here)

4 apples

caster sugar

25g/1oz butter

300g/9oz cream cheese

300ml double cream

1 vanilla pod

75g/3oz caster sugar

Mix the cheese, cream, vanilla and sugar and beat together. Pop in the fridge until you're ready.

If you're buying the fairings crumble them into crumbs. If you are making the biscuits follow the recipe above but make one giant fairing.

When cooled, crumble.

Peel and core the apples and cut into eighths. In a pan melt the butter. Add the apples and shake every now and again to stop them catching. When they soften a little add a tbsp or two of sugar and coat the apples. After a couple of minutes take off the heat and cool.

Start to assemble the cheesecake. In the bottom of a bowl sprinkle a layer of biscuit. Then layer some apple over the fairing crumbs. Then pipe some cream cheese mix over the top. (I have no bags left so had to spread it over.) Layer this again and finish with some crumbs.

I'm off to his grill for my birthday...maybe I'll get to try the real thing!