Making a cheesecake base from a recipe is straight forward, but if you’re making a cheesecake for one person, making a small cheesecake, or scaling up to make a large cheesecake, then you will want to know the butter to biscuit ratio for cheesecake base.

It will depend, in part, which biscuits you use, but when it comes to using digestive biscuits, then I’ll always start with roughly the same butter to biscuit ratio.  It’s not an exact science, you do have to go a little bit “by eye” to see if it’s how you like it.

The ratio of biscuits to butter will affect whether the cheesecake base is firm and stays intact, or crumbles away.  I like the base to be firm and to stay together, but to be cut up with the side of my spoon while I am eating it, with the base still staying intact.

I use Lidl Tower Gate Digestive Biscuits, you get about 27 biscuits in the packet and they cost 31p.  They are nice and crumbly!

Base Ratio

The ratio I use is by weight.  Each digestive biscuit weighs 14-15 grams.  I will use half this weight for the butter.  44 grams of biscuits to 22 grams of butter. 

How to Measure Small Quantities of Butter: 

I’ve found the best way to get the correct weight of butter is to stand the whole pack of butter on the digital scales and see how much it weighs.  I’ll then use a spoon to scrape away at the butter block until the scales read the right value. e.g. if I want 20 grams of butter (about 2 teaspoons) and the block of butter weighs 200 grams when I put it on the scale, I have to just cut/spoon it off until the scale shows 180 grams. 

This means that using 3 digestive biscuits, weighing 44 grams, I will be looking to use ~22 grams of butter.  If I put the butter pack on the scales and it reads 200 grams, then I will be scraping off the butter until the scales show just under 180 grams.  As the measurements aren’t critical, it’s OK to be a few grams either way!

Cheesecake for One

For 3 digestive biscuits you’re looking at about 2 teaspoons of butter, so start by scraping out a large chunk and then see how that’s going.

Then do it by eye. I find 3 digestive biscuits is enough for a quick, small, cheesecake for one that just hits the spot.