Cheesecake Base

Asked by LolaFontaine. Answered on 2nd May 2014

Full question

Hi, I'm from Australia and have noticed that digestive biscuits are used in a lot of Nigella's recipes for the cheesecake base. As McVitie's are one of the best known digestive biscuit brands in the UK I used those in my first attempt at a cheesecake, but found the texture a bit too grainy/wheaty/non-desserty. So I was just wondering if there's a particular brand or kind of digestive biscuit that Nigella uses in her recipes other than those, or if you could perhaps suggest a similar but sweeter alternative that'd work just as well? Thanks, Lauren

Our answer

In the UK digestive biscuits are popular as a base for cheesecakes and this is partly as they are the closest substitute for graham crackers, which are normally used for cheesecake bases in the US. If you can get graham crackers where you live then you could try these, though if anything digestive biscuits are a little sweeter than graham crackers. We can't recommend any particular brand as most digestive biscuits (including supermarket own label) are fairly similar in terms of sweetness and flavour.

If you don't find the base sweet enough then you could try adding a little caster sugar to the crumb mixture. Alternatively if there are any particular plain, slightly crumbly, sweet biscuits that you like then you could try using these as an alternative. If you like ginger then for the plainer cheesecakes, such as Nigella's London Cheesecake, you could use ginger snaps (ginger nuts) as an alternative to digestives for the base.