Strawberry Cheesecake

Most of the ingredients in this book are given in weight. I normally use cups a lot more (I even change recipes after seeing how many cups a certain weight of an item is as it's so much quicker). The advantage however of using weight is that Ruth could make a discovery all on her own. She showed me that the scale went down as she put more of the item in. How wonderful to discover "weight" on her own.
170g (6 oz) biscuit crumbs
85g (3 oz) butter
Melt the butter and mix into the biscuit crumbs.
I asked Ruth what happened to the butter if we kept it in the fridge. She said it went hard. She knows that's why we keep it in the cupboard - as it's easier to use when it's softer. So once we had put our mixture into the baking pan I asked Ruth how we can get the butter to go hard again. The fridge. How clever. :-)

Hull and chop 150g (5 1/2 oz) strawberries into small pieces.
Cut some extra ones up for decoration.
Put chopped strawberries into a pot.
Add 30g (1oz) sugar and
2 tbsp water.
Simmer until the strawberries are soft.
It was great to see how more liquid formed as the sugar melted and the strawberries cooked.
Remove from the head.
Add 135g (4 1/2 oz) packet strawberry jelly
Stir until smooth. Leave to cool.

We spoke about what happens to jelly when we add water (it's liquid) and then put it in the fridge (it sets). So instead of using water with the jelly powder we will be using
200g (7oz) cream cheese and
200ml cream.
It's far easier to see the level of normal runny cream compared to the thick cream we used yesterday. Little science lessons all over the place here.

Beat the cream. Making sure it does not turn to butter. We spoke about the times Ruth has seen cream turned into butter. It was good for her to watch it whipping up and see how it changed.
Whip the cream cheese.
Pour the jelly mixture onto the cheese.
Whisk to mix.
Spoon the whipped cream onto the jelly and cream cheese and fold in.
When Rachel tasted the finished product she said "it's so light". I reminded them about how we folded the cream in - trying to keep as much of that air in the mixture.

Place the mixture onto the biscuits. Smooth the tops and refrigerate for 2 hours until set.

It was really good for Ruth to see that with some things she does need help. The bowl was really heavy and so we could do this part together. She so loves to do things on her own - but is learning that at some points it's ok to do things together and accept help.

Remove from tin, serve and enjoy.