Gluten Free Base For Old Fashioned Cheesecake

Our answer

Nigella's Old-Fashioned Cheesecake doesn't have the usual cookie crumb base but instead has a type of pastry base made with butter, eggs, flour and sugar. The base is baked briefly before the cheesecake batter is added.

We suspect that the base could be made with gluten-free flour (or an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend). The base may be slightly more crumbly but the cheesecake mixture on top should help to hold it together. As gluten-free flours tend to absorb slightly more liquid, you may need to add an extra splash of milk when you make the dough. You need to add enough milk so that the dough starts to form clumps as it is processed and doesn't completely crumble when pressed into the pan. The cheesecake batter itself only contains cornflour (cornstarch) so is gluten free. However, please note that as we have not tried the base with gluten-free flour, we are unable to guarantee the results.