Forest Fruit Cheesecake Cookies

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C conventional heat. Add 70 g of the sugar and lemon zest to a large bowl, and rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers.
• Add the softened butter and vanilla, and mix everything together until fluffy. Add the egg yolks and mix to combine.
• In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Then add them to the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated.
• Add 1-2 tbsp of milk and fold this in the dough. You should end up with a mixture that is neither crumbly nor sticky.
• Transfer ⅓ of the cookie dough into a separate large bowl or deep plate and spread it out as a layer. Spread lumps of ⅓ of the forest fruit jam on top and swirl it in the dough with a knife. Cover this with another layer of ⅓ of the cookie dough. Do this by flattening pieces of the dough on your hand before placing it in the bowl. Then add lumps of ⅓ of the jam and swirl it around again. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough and jam.
• Gently fold the dough over itself a couple of times with a spatula (to ensure even marbling). Pre-heat oven to 180 °C conventional heat.
• Put 100 g of the granulated sugar into a small bowl. Scoop portions of the dough with a small ice cream scoop, and put it into the granulated sugar. Coat the balls evenly, after which you can shape it into perfectly round ball with your hands.
• Place these onto a parchment lined baking tray, and use a teaspoon to make holes in the middle (I needed 2 baking trays for this amount of cookies).
• Filling
• Using a spatula, mix the cream cheese and sugar together in a bowl until smooth.
• Heat up the heavy cream until warm (not boiling), and fold this together with vanilla into the mixture.
• Fill the cookies with about 2 teaspoons of the cheesecake filling, until filled to the brim.
• Bake for 17 minutes in two batches, until the cheesecake filling has set. Let them cool down on the trays completely.
• Topping
• In the meanwhile, prepare the topping. Mix together the cornstarch and water in a small bowl.
• Add the berries and lemon juice to a saucepan and cook them over medium-low heat for a couple of minutes, so the berries will release their juices. Make sure the berries do not get too soft so they will not fall apart later.
• Add the cornstarch mixture to the berry mixture and stir to combine. Cook over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes (stirring in between) until the berry juices have thickened.
• Pour this into a bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
• Once the cookies and topping have cooled down, add a spoonful of the blueberry sauce on top of each cookie.