Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

What do you do with 5lbs of super ripe strawberries? How about a strawberry topping for ice cream or cheesecake?

5 cups of cut-up berries, a little sugar (used about 1/3 C), and a splash of lemon juice, and you’ve got a giant container of strawberry sauce. Now what?

Well, guess you could make some strawberry ice cream if you want? Or even some strawberry sorbet? Or how about a strawberry swirl cheesecake and drizzle even more strawberry goodness over top before you eat it?

Have you ever seen those swirl cheesecakes in the dessert section of your supermarket? Back in the day, before I was introduced to the world of baking, we always bought this creamy strawberry swirl cheesecake from Superstore. So good. But how do you get that perfect swirl?

The Swirl

1. Prepare your vanilla cheesecake batter, with your favorite cheesecake recipe. (Here’s my favorite, which I also used for the Cappuccino Chocolate Cheesecake)

2. Set about 1/3 of the batter aside and flavor with fruit, chocolate, coffee, etc., till you’re satisfied with the taste. I used about 1 C of strawberry puree.

3. Time to layer. So you have about 2/3 batter plain, and 1/3 flavored batter: scoop about half the plain batter (1/3) into the prepared pie crust, then layer with strawberry, and lastly, the rest of the plain batter. Be sure to level out the batter after each layer. And it’s totally fine if the last layer doesn’t cover all of the second layer.

4. Now for the fun part. Using a knife, drag through the batter in an “S” or “figure eight” motion. Might take a few “S” motions to actually see the marbling. Be careful not to over-swirl/marble, or else you’ll just end up mixing the two batters together.

5. Once you’re happy with the marbling, bake, cool, and refrigerate.

6. Lastly, top with some fresh strawberry sauce, a dollop of whipped cream, and a mint leaf. Good to go.