Brillat-Savarin cheesecake with spiced biscuits, raspberries and lemon verbena

Preheat the oven to 110°C

Warm the double cream to 60°C then add the lemon verbena. Immediately remove from the heat, cover with cling film and infuse for 15 minutes

Pass the cream through a fine sieve

Place the Brillat-Savarin, caster sugar, scraped vanilla seeds, lemon zest and all the eggs into a food processor. Blend until smooth and pass through a fine sieve

Pour into your 7 cm silicone dome moulds then bake in the oven for 1 hour. When done, the cheesecakes should be just set, with a slight wobble

Cool at room temperature for 30 minutes then chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours

Next make the raspberry consommé. If using a sous vide and steam oven, split and scrape the vanilla pod into a large sous vide bag. Add all the remaining ingredients into the bag except for the agar, and vacuum seal

Place the sealed bag into a steamer at 86°C and cook for 2 hrs

If you don’t have a steamer you could also cook everything in a tightly sealed pan over a pan of simmering water for 45 minutes, making sure the bowl isn’t touching surface of the water

Once cooked, pass the consommé through some muslin cloth or a fine sieve

Set aside 400ml for making the gel and 200ml for using in the compote

Bring the 400ml consommé to the boil, then whisk in the agar agar. Cook for 2 minutes

Pour into a container and set for 30 minutes in the fridge

Once set, blend until smooth in a food processor and pass through a fine sieve. Set aside until needed

For the biscuit base, blend both the biscuits with the salt until they form crumbs. Add the melted butter and blend until combined

Set in a 7cm ring mould in the fridge for 1 hour 30 minutes, ensuring it is well pressed down. Chill until needed

For the compote, warm the remaining 200ml raspberry consommé with the lemon verbena, Chambord, vanilla and lemon zest to 35°C

Whisk in the sugar and pectin and boil for 2 minutes

Whisk in the citric acid and the gelatine

Place the raspberries in a heatproof bowl. Pour the sauce through a fine mesh sieve over the raspberries and gently whisk to break up the raspberries

Once this cools to 20°C it’s ready to glaze the cheesecake

Pour the warm compote over the cooled cheesecake and spread it into an even layer across the top of the cake

Place back into the fridge to set

Preheat the oven to 170°C

Roast the nibbed almonds on a baking tray for 10 minutes or until golden brown

Place the white chocolate and cocoa butter into a large, heatproof bowl. Melt in a bain-marie over a pan of simmering water until it reaches 50°C. Whisk the two together

Add the roasted almonds and remove from the heat. Once the coating cools to 26°C, it’s ready to use

Arrange the biscuit bases so you can place each cheesecake on top of them once it’s been dipped

Remove the cheesecake from the fridge and take it out of the mould

Using some cocktail sticks to hold it, dip the cheesecake into the white chocolate coating until it comes halfway up the sides. You want to still be able to see the shiny colour of the raspberries on top of the cheesecake

Place the dipped cheesecakes onto the spiced biscuit bases

Arrange the cheesecakes on the plates, and garnish with fresh raspberries, raspberry gel and some small lemon verbena leaves. Adam also garnishes this dish with gold leaf