PASSIONFRUIT CHEESECAKE

By Gilly Balcombe

Ingredients:

500g old fashioned cream cheese (NOT Philadelphia!! – treat yourself and get cream cheese from a deli counter or buy a brand like Paysan Breton. It may cost you a bit more, but the luxurious flavour of your cheesecake will make it worthwhile.)

4 eggs, separated

200g caster sugar

150g soured cream or crème fraiche

60g cornflour

Pulp and juice of two large (three small), ripe passionfruit

200g crushed Digestive biscuits

80g butter

2 tbsps light Muscovado sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 150°C, 140°C fan, Gas Mark 2

Prepare a 9” (22cm) or 10” (25cm) springform tin – depending on how deep you like your cheesecake! - by lining the base and sides with baking parchment.

Place the cream cheese, egg yolks, sugar, soured cream (or crème fraiche), cornflour and passionfruit pulp and juice into the bowl of your mixer and set it going at a medium to high pace (avoiding splashing!). Leave it happily churning away while you complete the next steps.

Add the butter, sugar and crushed biscuits to a saucepan and allow the butter to melt and the mixture to combine. It should still be slightly ‘sandy’. Pour the crumb mixture into the prepared tin and pat down, but don’t let the base become too tight. Ideally it should be a little higher round the edge than in the middle.

Now beat up the egg whites till they form soft peaks, and fold them gently into the cheese mixture, making sure you don’t have any clumps of pulp stuck to the beaters or any unfolded egg white. Pour into the prepared tin then bake for 45 minutes, till it looks set but still has a bit of a wobble. Don’t worry if the top cracks a little bit, this is perfectly normal! At the end of the baking time, turn the oven off and leave the cake to finish cooking and cooling with the door closed for another hour.

The cake can be refrigerated or frozen if made in advance, but in fact it’s better eaten the day it’s made before being refrigerated, as it retains a consistency that is almost like that of a soufflé. The slightly tart flavour of the passionfruit against the creamy texture of the cake itself is an absolute joy. If you choose, you can also decorate the cake with raspberries and / or strawberries, or make a berry coulis to pour over it when serving. A perfect summer dessert.