Nadiya Hussain’s Butterscotch Cheesecake Coconut Bars
With layers of buttery puff pastry, creamy cheesecake, and sweet caramel, these easy biscuity bars from Nadiya Hussain’s Everyday Baking make an excellent snack.
From the book
Nadiya’s Everyday Baking
95 simple and delicious new recipes as featured in the BBC2 TV show
Moving beyond cookies and cakes, with great baking recipes for every type of day, meal, and occasion
Fun flavour twists offer new takes on classic recipes
Introduction
These bars are so yummy with their layers of buttery puff pastry (easy shop-bought!), biscuity coconut crumb and cheesecake filling dotted with soft caramels, all topped with even more of that crumb and pastry under a sweet crunchy top. All the flavours of butterscotch with its caramels and vanilla, plus a sweet hint of coconut and spice. Pure and utter joy!
Ingredients
| 500g block | puff pastry, defrosted |
| 200g | speculoos biscuits |
| 50g | desiccated coconut, toasted |
| 75g | salted butter, melted |
| For the filling: | |
|---|---|
| 600g | full-fat cream cheese |
| 1 | vanilla pod |
| 50g | caster sugar |
| 1 | medium egg, beaten |
| 2 tbsp | plain flour |
| 100g | soft caramels, chopped |
| For the top: | |
| 15g | unsalted butter, melted |
| 30g | caster sugar |
| ½ tsp | nutmeg |
| ½ tsp | ground cinnamon |
Essential kit
You will need: a 20cm square cake tin, a food processor.
Method
Start by lining the base and sides of a 20cm square cake tin. Preheat the oven to 190°c/fan 170°c/gas mark 4.
Cut the pastry in half. Take one rectangle of dough and squash it into a round ball – the aim is to still have a buttery dough but with fewer layers. Do this to both pieces. Now roll out the pastry into a rough square and trim to a 20cm square to fit the cake tin. Do this to both mounds of pastry. Place one square of pastry in the base and keep the other one off to the side.
Put the biscuits into a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb. Pour into a bowl with the toasted coconut and butter and mix well. Add half of the crumb mixture right on top of the pastry in the tin and push that into the pastry.
To make the filling, put the cream cheese into a bowl. Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla pod and add to the cream cheese along with the sugar, egg and flour and mix well. Stir in the chopped caramels. Pop the mixture all over the biscuit crumb.
Now add the remaining biscuit crumb in another layer and then the second square of pastry on top. Push it down to create an even, flat layer.
Brush the top with melted butter. Mix the sugar with the nutmeg and cinnamon and sprinkle all over the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
Take out and leave in the tin till completely cool. Chill for 2 hours and then, after all the waiting, it is ready to cut into bars and eat.
