Sicilian blood orange cheesecake

So often cheesecakes can be overly sugary, overly creamy and just a little bit much. This version might make you rethink your conception of a cheesecake. There's no biscuit base, but instead there's a beautifully light and fluffy ricotta filling, studded with all the flavours of Sicilian desserts: sherry-soaked raisins, emerald pistachios, vibrant candied peel and citrus zest. On top, a gorgeous burst of blood orange colour and a scattering of more pistachios. It's light, fresh, fluffy and really very good. For the recipe, head over to my latest post for the Appliances Online lifestyle blog, here!

Food Glorious Food

Hello avid readers. This is just a quick note to say that I'll be appearing in tonight's episode of Food Glorious Food, on ITV at 8pm. Tune in to see how my rhubarb and ginger crumble cheesecake fared with the show's formidable judges. If you miss it, fear not, you can catch up on itv player. And if you still miss it, then don't worry too much - the show has been widely slated by pretty much everyone who matters and is generally acknowledged to be a bit of a flop, so you're probably not going to have a giant hole in your life if you fail to watch. I'm also fairly certain I said some awkwardly embarrassing things and have been typecast as a horrifically middle class food snob, so maybe it's best that you don't watch (yes, I know I am a horrifically middle class food snob, but I try to pretend I'm not).

I'd be interested, however, if you do watch it, to see if you agree that Carol Vorderman (the show's presenter) and I look identical. I'm not so convinced, but perhaps this photo, taken during filming, will let you judge for yourselves:

So, if you like food, bunting, Carol Vorderman and home cooks making fools out of themselves and being lacerated by WI judges in cardigans, and want to see me possibly cycling around York with a baguette in my bike basket, tune into Food Glorious Food tonight at 8pm on itv.

A final note: if you don't watch the show, the accompanying cookbook is actually quite good. My cheesecake recipe is in it, which is reason enough to buy it. Even if they did misspell my name in giant letters. 

Apple and blackcurrant cheesecakes

Do you remember that Ribena advert, proudly proclaiming that '95% of Britain's blackcurrants end up as Ribena' (or something to that effect)?

How many of you, like me, ponder that figure in your food-addled brain and think, 'wow, what a waste'?

A recent study discovered that blackcurrant juice, from concentrate, only accounts for 5% of the total Ribena product. You don't have to be a mathematician to work out that something is tragically wrong here. Take 95% of a crop of something totally beautiful, and dilute it to the point of vapid, watery nothingness? This is not how blackcurrants should be treated.

Blackcurrants are another of those slightly elusive and much-underrated fruits that I have a certain penchant for. By 'penchant', I mean 'tendency to buy large quantities and hoard them in the freezer for months on end'.

While I'm self-confessedly awful at hoarding foodstuffs in general in my freezer, there are some things that find themselves in there much more frequently, and in greater quantity, than others. Beautiful bright pink Yorkshire rhubarb is one, for the main reason that the season is so short and you just can't get that gorgeous colour all year round. Odd cuts of meat are another, because I find myself carnivorously intrigued by them and know I won't be able to get them just anywhere - ox cheeks, goose breasts, pigs cheeks, grouse breasts, whole stuffed wild ducks and venison loins have all found themselves snuggling in the frosty depths of my voracious freezer at some point or another.

Other peripherally but not immediately useful things, too, like bags of egg whites (usually a relic of a vigorous ice-cream making session), breadcrumbs, homemade stock, and apple purée (great for baking and making homemade granola), also take up valuable space in there.

The worst, though, for catching my eye and ending up consigned to the chilly white halls of the freezer, is fruit. Specifically, seasonal fruit that is only around for a short time (gooseberries, redcurrants, cranberries...), and which I therefore snap up in order to indulge in when it is in short supply.

Except I don't. I buy it all, it sits in the freezer awaiting a recipe idea worthy enough to make the most of its sumptuous scarcity...until the season comes round again, thereby totally invalidating the idea of saving it for when it's not available.

I realised quite recently that this saving of gluts for hard times is completely ridiculous, because there is always something new and delicious in season at any given point of the year, which more than makes up for the lack of something else. I save winter rhubarb for the summer months, yet in the summer months I'm far more likely to make the most of the fresh apricots in the market than want to make a rhubarb crumble. I bottle those apricots for the autumn, yet when it comes around I'm gorging myself on beautiful juicy English pears and gorgeous plump Turkish figs. Even winter isn't exactly barren of delicious things: imported lychees and persimmons, fresh cranberries, and fabulous blood oranges. I don't think there's ever been a point where I've wished for a fruit outside its season, because there's simply so much else around to tempt me.

So, in the spirit of using up things in the freezer and trying to break this compulsive hoarding habit, I decided to finally use up a punnet of blackcurrants that have been sitting there since last summer.

There's a reason I bulk-buy these little black beauties. They are quite unlike any other fruit or berry, possessing the most amazingly complex flavour and fragrance. I always think there's something floral, even grassy, about their aroma and taste. They have a mouth-puckering sharpness, but one that is infinitely more pleasant and complicated than that provided by, say, a lemon, adding its unusual qualities to whatever you choose to do with those currants. They're also beautiful, often ranging in size from tiny black dots like little bullets to much rounder, swollen globules, their skins somehow matt yet glossy at the same time, utterly fragile and yielding to the slightest bump or pressure.

And when they do yield, they pour forth a deep, rich purple liquor, possessing a gorgeous fragrant sharpness and an addictive sourness. A mass of blackcurrants, softened in a pan until just starting to release their shining juice, is a lovely addition to so many things.

Why on earth you would take that potential and water it down and sugar it up until it barely resembled the original product, I really don't know. I can think of so many better ways to use our blackcurrant crop.

They do have an affinity with apples, a pairing capitalised upon by many a soft drink, although I actually think they do better with pears, which are less sharp than apples and therefore form a beautiful soft, fragrant partnership to the assertive currants. They are also delicious with anything buttery or crumbly, as are most tart fruits.

Where blackcurrants really come into their own, though, is with dairy. Nothing like the beautiful bland, sweet foil of dairy to let their complex aroma shine, as well as set off their vibrant purple colours.

These cheesecakes capitalise upon all those partnerships: apples, butter and dairy. There's a buttery shortbread biscuit base, somehow richer than the usual Digestive biscuit base and a mellower match for the currants. There's a sweet unbaked filling, perfumed with vanilla and rippled through with a basic blackcurrant compote. There are spiced, caramelised apples on top, providing the deep warmth of ginger and mixed spice (from JustIngredients) to complement the sweet dairy and buttery base.

These are inspired by a cheesecake I had recently for dessert at one of my favourite restaurants in York. The combination of sharp, fragrant currants, creamy cheese filling and that super-crunchy buttery base is fantastic. The spiced apples on top lend a sweet and warming note to the whole thing. I made these in individual glasses, for the very pragmatic reason that I knew if I made a whole cake, I'd end up going back for seconds and then thirds and disgusting myself. That said, you can pack quite a bit of cheesecake into my individual dessert glasses, so I ended up feeling pretty gluttonous anyway.

Totally worth it, though - these are delicious. Clearing out the freezer has never tasted so good.

Apple and blackcurrant cheesecakes

This recipe can either make one cake, between 18-20cm diameter, or several individual cakes. Depending on the size of your individual moulds/glasses and your appetites/greed, it will make four to six individual cheesecakes. 

• 10 shortbread finger biscuits
• 50g butter, melted
• 250g blackcurrants, stems and leaves removed (frozen are fine)
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 250g Quark
• 250g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• /1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 sachet powdered gelatine
• A large knob of butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 2-3 apples, cored and cut into thin slices

First, make the base. Blitz the shortbread in a blender to fine crumbs, then stir into the melted butter. If making one large cake, grease and line an 18 or 20cm springform cake tin and place a circle of greaseproof paper in the bottom. Pour the biscuits into the tin and press down to form an even layer. If using individual glasses or moulds, use the biscuits to line the bottom of each. Chill in the fridge for an hour.

Meanwhile, make the blackcurrant compote. Place the blackcurrants in a small saucepan with a tiny drop of water and the caster sugar, then cook over a low heat just until they've started to soften and release juice. Set aside and leave to cool.

For the filling, beat together the Quark, cream cheese, icing sugar. Either beat in the vanilla extract or, if using a pod, scrape the seeds from the pod into the cheese mixture. Beat together until well combined.

Bring the 3 tbsp water to the boil in a small saucepan, then remove from the heat. Immediately sprinkle the gelatine evenly over the surface, then leave for a minute. Stir the gelatine into the water, until it has all dissolved. You need to work quickly now before the cheese mixture sets. Pour the gelatine into the cheese mixture, then quickly whisk it in. Pour half of the blackcurrant compote (reserve the rest for garnishing) into the cheese mixture, then stir gently to ripple it through the cheese.

Divide the cheese filling between the individual moulds, or pour into the cake tin. Place in the fridge and chill for a few hours, or overnight.

For the spiced apples, heat the knob of butter together with the brown sugar in a non-stick pan until foaming, then add the spices and sliced apples. Sauté over a fairly high heat until the apples turn soft, brown and caramelised. Turn off the heat and set aside until ready to serve.

When ready to serve, spoon the apples over the cake(s) to decorate, then finish with the remaining blackcurrant compote.

Lime, lemongrass, ginger and coconut cheesecake

What would you do with forty limes?

A question I'm sure most of you will not have given much thought to. I admit it isn't something that had ever crossed my mind before (although I was in the enviable position a couple of years ago of speculating the uses for twenty mangoes). I tend to have, at most, five limes in the fridge at any one time. I use them a lot more frequently now than I used to, having fallen in love with south east Asian food during my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia last year, and it's rare that a lime doesn't get squeezed over most of my meals prior to eating.

I love the fragrant zing of a fresh lime, that beautiful perfume that emanates as you scrape the flesh with a grater or squeeze the skin between your fingers. Limes have a magic about them that lemons just don't possess for me; maybe it's their association with more exotic climes, and more exotic cuisines. They seem to have fragrance as well as sourness. I also think their colouring is far more beautiful than that of lemons, particularly when you find a ripening specimen that is mottled, blushing yellow, promising bountiful juice within.

Although, as I write this, I wonder if that 'fragrance' I keep attributing to limes in my mind is more to do with the fact that one of my favourite ways to have limes is sitting in a glass of gin. Hmm.

I use limes in many ways in my kitchen. Their juice gets squeezed over a Thai curry, along with a scattering of fresh basil and coriander, just before eating, where it lifts all the flavours and makes everything riot. It also gets sprinkled over a bowl of fresh papaya, one of my absolute favourite breakfasts. Like rhubarb and ginger or apple and cinnamon, lime and papaya for me have a deep affinity that is almost primal. There's something gorgeous about the contrasting colours as you mingle the two - that beautiful vibrant green against the deep orange flesh of a succulent papaya.

Lime juice also makes an excellent addition to salad dressings, when you want a really zingy snap of freshness. This works particularly well in salads of the Asian variety, mixed with a little fish sauce for the salty element, chilli for heat, and brown sugar for sweetness. However, it's also a good substitute for lemon juice in any other salad dressing, particularly delicious mixed with olive oil and mustard and used to dress wafer-thin sliced fennel.

I also enjoy the zest of limes scattered over desserts for a snap of freshness; it's surprisingly delicious sprinkled over peaches baked with ginger and brown sugar. The zest adds a richer, more fragrant note than the juice, so is lovely in curry pastes or cakes. The smell as you rasp a grater over the glossy skin of a fresh lime is so, so utterly worth the labour-intensive nature of the task, or any scraped knuckles.

In fact, there's very little that isn't improved by limes. I remember in Vietnam they were served with almost every meal. The limes over there are gorgeously tiny, about the size of a ping-pong ball, and are delicious squeezed over everything from fruit to noodle soup. The juice mixed with a little salt makes a fabulous dipping sauce for fresh seafood. Limes, to me, have the same culinary use as salt: they sharpen and bring out the flavours of whatever you choose to mingle them with, often negating the need for any salt at all.

The other week, I was sent a basket of Brazilian limes. These are seedless limes with thinner skins than your average, so they are plumper and juicier. I was expecting a sample of maybe ten limes, at the most, so when I unwrapped my hamper of around forty, beautifully arranged and wrapped in cellophane, I admit I did wonder how I was going to use them all (OK, I lie. All I did was glance up at my cupboard where a bottle of Bombay Sapphire was winking enticingly at me).

However, in the interests of not promoting alcoholism on this blog, and because I much prefer ingesting calories that I can chew on, I decided to take advantage of my bountiful lime supply to experiment with a few recipes. First on the list was a cheesecake, inspired by one I ate a few weeks ago in a Malaysian restaurant and have been dying to recreate ever since. I was captivated by its fabulous combination of lime, lemongrass, coconut and ginger.

If the knee-jerk partners for apples are nuts, raisins and cinnamon, or for bananas brown sugar, maple syrup, chocolate and pecan nuts, those for limes surely have to be coconut, ginger and lemongrass. I like to think of food in 'semantic fields' like this; a literature term but one I think is highly relevant to gastronomy. Certain ingredients just cry out to be paired with other ingredients with which they have a certain affinity, often because they share a climate or region. This is the case with limes: lime, lemongrass, coconut and ginger are the basic component of many south east Asian curries and stir-fries.

In fact, when one of my friends tried a piece of this cheesecake, her first reaction was 'This tastes like Thai food. In a dessert.'

Which is exactly what I was aiming for.

This is a baked cheesecake, because I wanted a properly dense, creamy texture to stand up to all the assertive flavours in there. It has a beautiful crisp ginger biscuit base. I never buy cheesecakes, always preferring to make my own for one simple reason: you can have as thick a biscuit base as you like. As it's the best part, I generally think a ratio of 1:1, base to cheesecake, is a good idea. This cake puts that into practice (however, if you want more filling, I've included instructions in the recipe to adapt it).

The cheesecake filling, lightened with ricotta rather than cream cheese, is permeated by shards of lemongrass, blitzed finely in a blender but still possessing a little crunch, and chunks of syrupy stem ginger that bring heat and sweetness. There's the mellow, creamy flavour of coconut running through the filling, and flakes of toasted coconut on top. It's a riot of beautiful zingy flavours, mellowed by the comforting sweetness of the coconut.

For the topping, I decided to be a bit fancy and make some candied limes. This basically involves simmering lime slices in sugar syrup until they soften and become sweet rather than sour. The peel still stays quite tough, but they make a lovely sharp contrast to the rich, dense cheese filling. Plus I think they look beautiful. You can make a batch of these and keep them in the fridge or freezer to decorate other types of cake.

While some cheesecakes can be cloyingly rich, this is the opposite. It takes everything that is fresh, vibrant and healthy about Asian food and transforms it into a dessert that possesses all those qualities. There's the fiery heat of ginger, the fragrance of lime zest and lemongrass, and, underlying it all, the delicious sweet creaminess of coconut. Add to that the crunch of a sweet-tart candied lime and flakes of sweet, nutty, rich coconut, and you have something that I think is pretty special.

I should add a disclaimer here: this is not the answer to 'how to use up forty limes', as it only uses four. But it's so nice that you probably should make ten, and then you'll have used them all up. Voila.

Lime, lemongrass, ginger and coconut cheesecake (serves 8):

If you want more filling compared to the amount of base, just multiply the asterisked ingredients by 1.5 (for example, you'd use 375g ricotta cheese, 300ml creme fraiche, etc)

• 16 ginger nut biscuits
• 60g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 1 stalk fresh lemongrass, roughly chopped*
• 250g ricotta cheese*
• 200ml half-fat creme fraiche*
• 90g caster sugar*
• 2 large eggs*
• 1 tbsp runny honey*
• 1 tsp coconut essence (use vanilla if you can't find this)*
• Zest of 4 limes*
• 3 globes stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped*
• 2-3 tbsp desiccated coconut, toasted in a dry pan
• For the candied limes:
• 240ml water, plus extra for blanching the limes
• 225g sugar
• 2 limes, very thinly sliced

[I would recommend making the candied limes - see below - the day before you want to decorate the cheesecake]

First, make the biscuit base. Pre-heat the oven to 180C, and place an oven dish or tray on the bottom shelf. Blitz the ginger nut biscuits in a blender until fine crumbs. Melt the butter in a saucepan or in a bowl in the microwave, then stir the biscuits into it. Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin with a circle of baking parchment, then press the biscuits into an even layer on the bottom of it. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes then remove and leave to cool. Once cool, grease the inside of the cake tin. Lower the oven temperature to 160C.

Meanwhile, clean out the blender. Put the lemongrass in it and blitz until very finely chopped. Add the ricotta cheese, creme fraiche, sugar, eggs, honey, coconut essence and lime zest, then blitz again briefly to combine all the ingredients. Stir in the stem ginger (don't process it as this will chop it too finely). Pour the cheesecake mix over the base, then cover the tin with foil. Have a jug of cold water ready. Put the cheesecake into the oven, then quickly pour the water into the tray on the bottom, to create steam. Close the door quickly. Bake the cheesecake for 45-55 minutes, or until set with only a slight wobble (peel back the foil to have a look). Leave to cool.

For the candied limes, blanch the lime slices in boiling water for 3 minutes, then drain. Bring the 240ml water and 225g sugar to the boil in a saucepan, then add the lime slices and simmer gently for around 45 minutes, until the rind has softened. Remove from the syrup and leave to cool and dry out on a sheet of greaseproof paper, preferably overnight. You can keep the lime syrup to drizzle over the cheesecake while serving, if you like.

Remove the cake from its tin and put on a plate. Decorate with the lime slices and toasted coconut, then refrigerate. Remove from the fridge around 30 minutes before serving.

Yorkshire curd tart

Sometimes, it is the least spectacular-looking foods that pack the biggest flavour punch, and deliver the most reward in terms of eating. Think beef stew, a mass of dark brown homogenous sludge that delivers rich, sticky umami flavours with every mouthful. In the same vein, beef rendang, that fabulous Malaysian curry whose uniform brown appearance gives no hint of the flavour explosion within: a riot of coconut, ginger, lemongrass and garlic. Banana bread - not exactly sporting oodles of frivolous decoration, yet - for me - infinitely more rewarding than any fancily decorated piece of patisserie. Lentil dhal - if made correctly, a gorgeous blend of buttery richness and warming spices, but definitely never a contender for prettiest dish of the year.

In Syria, I once took a bite from a loaf of bread that looked distinctly normal and unpromising, only to find the most incredible soft, buttery brioche texture underneath its sweet, glazed crust. In Vietnam, the homely appearance of a bowl of pho gives very little hint of the depth of flavour promised by that clear broth. In Sicily, you'd be forgiven for turning your nose up at a bowl of caponata, a sweet-sour aubergine stew, but perseverance would reward you with an incredible medley of flavours: punchy vinegar, smoky aubergine, salty capers. Curries are, by and large, mostly indistinguishable in appearance, but what a range of hot/sweet/sharp/spicy combinations lies hidden by that homogeneity.

This Yorkshire curd tart may not win any prizes for prettiness. It has no sexily oozing ganache coating, no whipped cream swirls, no sugar paste roses. There are no glacé cherries, edible flowers or decadent spirals of buttercream. It doesn't even boast a glorious colourful simplicity about it, like a lemon tart or a rhubarb crumble. 

However, this is all a cunning ploy on the part of the Yorkshire curd tart. It likes to maintain a sense of exclusivity, you see. It only wants to be familiar to that privileged and select group who are 'in the know'. It doesn't want to be adopted by the plebs, cheapened by mass production that provides barely edible, over-processed, over-sugared versions to satisfy the sweet tooths of the general public. Look what happened to its good friend Bakewell Tart, or Mince Pie. It's barely worth thinking about the poor fate of Fondant Fancy. The Yorkshire curd tart never wants to find itself in the overzealous hands of that dentist's nemesis, Mr Kipling.

In order to maintain this status quo, the Yorkshire curd tart hides its fabulous nature under a cunningly-fashioned cloak of beige. It conceals its utter deliciousness beneath a cleverly uniform, nondescript crust. Even when you cut into it (be gentle, please), it gives little away, revealing nothing more than a few uncontroversial currants peppering what is otherwise a homogenous, unremarkable interior.

Ah, I can see it's fooled you too. You weren't that amazed by the photos. They're certainly not a patch on that luscious chocolate ganache cake with the glossy strawberries I made about a year ago. You're thinking, 'meh, looks a bit bland. Beige. Click away'.

Perhaps you should, because I'm not sure the Yorkshire curd tart will be very happy about me revealing its secret to the world.

Because the truth is, you see, that this is an utterly delicious piece of baking. You start with a pastry crust, which is always a good sign. You fill this with a mixture of creamed butter and sugar, blended with pale curd cheese - a little like ricotta, but firmer. This you brighten with a few aromatic spices - nutmeg, mostly - and sweet little currants, which provide a beautiful burst of flavour within the comforting, custard-like filling. 

It's hard to describe the flavour of this wonderful creation. I first tried it, at the insistence of my mother, a Yorkshire lass, at Betty's tearoom (a northern institution). I was sceptical, just like you. I probably wanted to go for the shiny fruit tarts sitting next to it. The Yorkshire curd tart is unfazed by these. It is not jealous of their flouncy airs and graces - it doesn't want to attract the attention of just anyone.

However, since my first bite, I've been hooked on the glorious combination of crunchy pastry and the soft, yielding interior. Its texture is reminiscent of a cross between treacle tart and custard tart - not too sweet and sticky, but not gooey either. It's probably best described as a more dense, crumbly version of a cheesecake. Apparently it originated on farms as a way of frugally using up the curds that are by-products of the cheesemaking process. I can't think of a better way to rescue them than by combining them with butter, sugar, spices and fruit. 

Having long enjoyed the occasional curt tart from Betty's (a major factor in my decision to attend York University), I decided to have a go at making my own. It seems fitting that I mark my transition to the north of England by ensuring a Yorkshire speciality lies firmly within my cooking repertoire. 

While you can sometimes find curd cheese in specialist delis and cheese shops, it's incredibly easy to make - you just heat whole milk, add a little lemon juice, allow it to separate into curds and whey, then drain the curds in a sieve overnight through a cloth so they turn a little more solid and creamy. After your cheese is ready, you just make a quick pastry, line a tart tin, then beat the cheese with the butter, sugar, currants and an egg.

I decided to add a few spices to enrich mine: nutmeg is a given, but I also put in a little ground ginger, and some orange peel powder. The slight hint of warm citrus that it lends to the crumbly, creamy filling is perfect. It's not too sweet a tart, instead possessing a delicious buttery creaminess, without actually containing much butter. It's rich and comforting without being heavy, a perfect late afternoon pick-me-up, or a delicious dessert with some ice cream.

I'm sure you're all intrigued. Get into the kitchen, make this delicious and underrated creation, and enjoy the unusually moreish combination of ingredients.

Then promptly forget it ever happened. Forget all about the curd tart. Definitely don't tell your friends. Let's keep it a little-known secret.

Yorkshire curd tart (serves 6-8):

For the curd cheese:

• 1.2 litres whole milk (a 2 pint bottle is fine)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• For the pastry:
• 140g plain flour
• 85g cold butter, cubed
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Ice cold water

For the filling:

• 50g butter, softened
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp orange peel powder
• Curd cheese (see above)
• 35g currants

The night before you want to bake the tart, make the curd cheese. Bring the milk to a gentle simmer in a large saucepan, then add the lemon juice. Lower the heat and stir gently, and watch the milk separate into curds (white lumps) and whey (pale liquid). Remove from the heat and leave to cool, then pour the mixture into a sieve lined with muslin or a teatowel/clean cloth, resting over a pan or bowl. Leave to drain overnight. In the morning, scrape the curd cheese (it will look a bit like ricotta) from out of the cloth and refrigerate. You can use the leftover liquid (the whey) for making scones or soda bread - use it instead of buttermilk.

For the pastry, put the flour, butter, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add 1tbsp of cold water, pulse again, then continue to add water a little bit at a time until the mixture just starts to come together - you'll need around 2-3tbsp. Turn the pastry out onto a floured work surface and knead until it just forms a ball, then wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 180C. Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface and use to line a 20cm tart tin or pie dish with a removable base. Don't trim the sides of the pastry yet, as they will shrink when baking. Put some greaseproof paper in the pastry case and fill with baking beans, then bake for 10 minutes. Remove the beans and paper and bake for a further 10 minutes, until the case is golden.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Beat together the butter and sugar using an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the egg, beating in between additions. Add the nutmeg, ginger and orange peel powder, then add the curd cheese. Whisk gently to incorporate it into the mixture, then whisk in the currants.

When the pastry case has baked, pour the curd filling into it and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden and set - it should still have a slight wobble to it, though. Allow to cool, then dust with icing sugar and serve.

Gooseberry and elderflower cheesecakes

I find it strange that the gooseberry has become a metaphorical signifier for social awkwardness. When one remarks that one "feels like a gooseberry", for example when forming the third person in an uncomfortable triangle whose other two members are romantically involved, it would make sense to identify oneself with a fruit that is as culinarily awkward as one feels socially awkward at that moment in time.

And yet the gooseberry is by no means an awkward and incompatible ingredient. In fact, it couples beautifully and harmoniously with many other things; so much so that I simply cannot understand why it has become sadly underrated and used more as a metaphor for uncomfortable isolation than as the delicious kitchen treat it really is.

Gooseberries identify very closely with rhubarb, both in my mind and in my kitchen. In fact, they are pretty much interchangeable in all recipes.

They are both unpromising when raw, tough and bitter and crying out for the sweet tempering treatment of a snowy sugar coating and a gentle heat. They are both available for a certain period of the year, outside which it is impossible to source them from abroad as there simply isn't the demand to produce them. Gooseberries especially - you're lucky if you can find them outside the months of June and July.

They both mellow and transform into something soft, pastel-hued and delectable with the brief heat of a flame or oven and a generous few spoonfuls of sugar to round out their aggressively acidic edge.

They both have similar sweet and savoury applications. If you want to be a bit risqué, try pairing your cooked rhubarb or gooseberries with fatty meats or fish, such as pork belly or mackerel (fresh or smoked). They provide the perfect foil to its cloying strength, a refreshing partnership that takes both ingredients to new heights.

On the more mainstream sweet side, you can't beat a pie or crumble. You really need something lovely and buttery to stand up to all that sweet tartness. Perhaps a fool, where the collapsed fruit is folded into softly whipped cream (although being a hater of cream, I'm not really a fan of fools. In fact I loathe them and would rather eat Ryvita).

Or a cheesecake.

I can't think of many fruits that don't go well with a creamy cheesecake batter. Something about that soft, bland, blank canvas just begs for a vibrant and flavour-packed fruit to decorate it.

The gooseberry is your fruit. It's soft and delicate to look at, collapsed from its heat treatment like a deflated football but still possessing that jade hue and tart juice. It has a fragrance reminiscent of muscat grapes and sweet dessert wine; mellow, honeyed tones that partner perfectly with cream. Or cream cheese.

Rhubarb has many friends, from ginger to strawberries, but gooseberries have their fair share too. Cream, for one, but also elderflower, a completely classic and divine pairing that makes you wonder, rather like the combination of apple and cinnamon, which genius discovered it. Ideally you'd simmer gooseberries with heads of freshly picked elderflowers, but I can never find any, so I settled for elderflower cordial, which also provides the benefit of sweetening the berries as well as imbuing them with a heady floral fragrance.

These cheesecakes (aren't they gorgeous?) were inspired by a recent trip to York, which will be my home for at least the next three years when I embark on my PhD this October. I've visited Cafe No. 8 Bistro twice now on visits to this beautiful city, and really cannot wait to make it a regular haunt as I love their food. On my most recent visit, I couldn't resist ordering the 'Gooseberry crumble cheesecake' that I saw scrawled on the blackboard dessert menu. A dessert whose name literally just takes three of my favourite food-related words and puts them together? It was obviously going to happen.

It was pretty as a picture and tasted even better. The cheesecakes had been individually made in little moulds, so I got a circle of biscuit base all to myself, with a very light, creamy topping, lots of sweet-tart berries, and generous shards of buttery crumble. The whole thing was drizzled with cream, which I initially thought might be overkill, but I loved the way it mellowed the tangy edge of the gooseberries.

I knew it was going to be good before I even tucked in, because the biscuit base to cheesecake ratio was approximately 1:1, which is obviously going to result in a damn fine eating experience.

I've been thinking about that little cheesecake ever since, and dying to replicate it at home. Now that gooseberries are on the market once more, it had to happen. I also picked up these beautiful little trifle glasses for the princely sum of 20p each on a recent impulse visit to the charity shop, and I just loved the idea of serving individual cheesecakes, with all their pretty pastel layers of goodness on display.

This recipe is very simple, using a mixture of melted butter and digestive biscuits for the base, which is chilled before the topping goes on, for maximum crunch. The topping is a simple mixture of Quark (fat free cream cheese), cream cheese, icing sugar and elderflower cordial, set with gelatine to a soft, quivering creaminess. It's sweet and unintrusive, setting the scene for the burst of flavour provided by the gooseberries, which I simmered with sugar and elderflower cordial until they were fragrant and delicious.

These, for me, are a perfect summer dessert. They showcase this tragically maligned fruit to its full potential. They look simply beautiful, with their subtle colours and defined layers. They taste fabulous, the buttery crunch of the biscuit coupled with the sweet creaminess of the cheesecake, all lifted by the tart, floral berries.

They're very English, very summery, very understated, and just very tasty.

So please, next time you feel socially awkward, please pick a more apt fruit to identify with. Surely the durian fruit, which reportedly smells like rotting flesh and is actually banned in several countries for this reason, is a more realistic candidate. Leave the poor gooseberry alone.

How do you like to eat gooseberries? Have you discovered any good friends for them in terms of ingredients?

Gooseberry and elderflower cheesecakes (makes 6 mini cheesecakes or one large one):

• 10 digestive biscuits
• 60g butter, melted
• 250g Quark
• 250g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp elderflower cordial
• 1 sachet powdered gelatine
• 350g gooseberries, topped and tailed
• Sugar, to taste (probably around 2 dsp)
• 1-2 tbsp elderflower cordial

Blitz the biscuits in a blender to fine crumbs, then mix with the melted butter. Spoon the mixture into six individual trifle glasses, or into a greased and lined 20cm springform cake tin. Place in the fridge for an hour to chill.

Whisk together the quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Place the elderflower cordial in a small heatproof bowl and microwave until hot and starting to bubble. Sprinkle the gelatine over the top and leave for a minute or so, then stir vigorously to dissolve. If it doesn't all dissolve, blast in the microwave for another few seconds.

Add this to the cheese mixture, then quickly whisk it all together. Divide the mixture between the six glasses or pour into the cake tin. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to set, or overnight.

For the gooseberries, put the berries in a small pan with a couple of tablespoons of sugar and heat until starting to burst and release juice. If the berries release a lot of liquid, drain it off as you go - you want it to be the consistency of a compote, not watery. Stir the berries to squish them together a bit. Add the elderflower, then taste the mixture to check the sweetness - it should be quite sharp, but not unpleasantly so. Add more sugar if necessary. Leave to cool, then chill the mixture in the fridge.

When ready to serve, spoon the gooseberries over the cheesecake mixture. You could scatter with some flaked almonds, if you like.

Alphonso mango, coconut & cardamom cheesecake

OK, so I'm kind of cheating with this one. In that I posted this recipe already, approximately a year ago. But a) I felt it was only fair that it had another moment in the limelight, as it's so damn good, and b) my photography has improved slightly since then, so I wanted to do the cheesecake its full justice by taking half-decent photos of it. Actually, they're kind of odd photos, because I took them al fresco, so the sunlight is doing weird things with shadows and exposure. However, I quite like them because they remind me that today was beautiful and sunny in the afternoon, so I could actually take a cake outside. Had I tried to shoot these photos approximately four hours earlier, the cheesecake would have been swept away by what was pretty much a monsoon, engulfing Cambridge for an hour this morning, soaking me to the skin and forcing me to take refuge in Marks & Spencer. What a hardship.

It's Alphonso mango season at the moment, which basically means my life is perfect and joyful. I've been kidding myself over the past year that my favourite fruit is the pear. Which then changes to the apple every time I bite into a crisp-skinned Pink Lady or a citrussy Cox. Which then changes to the pineapple when I have a really good piece of juicy, sweet, perfectly ripe pineapple, oozing luscious golden juice. Which then changes to the banana, when I eat a really good, tangy underripe banana to give me an energy boost for the gym. Which then changes to the apricot, when I bake them with orange flower water and honey and spoon them in seductive rosy heaps over my morning porridge. Which then changes to the raspberry, now that British ones are in season and offering up their tart juiciness. What can I say? I'm fickle when it comes to fruit.

But suddenly, come June, I realise now that all of this is a lie. Because my absolute favourite fruit, dear readers, is the Alphonso mango. Trust me to pick something exotic, elusive and expensive that is only available for a very tiny window of the year. 

I don't want to go into too much detail about these luscious mangoes, because I did so in my last post for this cheesecake.  Suffice to say that if you could eat gold , this is probably what it would taste like. 

The flesh is buttery, honey-sweet, oozing syrupy orange juice (your fingernails will look like a smoker's for days after eating one of these bad boys). The perfume is heady, whispering of tropical climes, of heaving spice markets, of radiant silks. The feel in your hand is firm, plump, warm, almost alive. Mottled, sun-kissed flesh, hinting coyly at the promise of treasure within. 

If you don't believe me, try and track down a box of these specimens before the season ends - they're generally found in Asian markets and groceries. I actually got mine from the Chinese grocery store near where I work; the middle Eastern stores were only selling the Pakistani honey mangoes, which are also fabulous but not quite as wonderful; they're slightly more bland, with creamier, less vibrant flesh. They're still a million times better than any other mangoes from the supermarket, though.

So, get your Alphonso mango. Beg, borrow or steal if you have to. If you think £5-7 for a box is too much, you're an idiot. It's so worth it.

Sniff one, cut it open, and suck the flesh straight from the stone. 

Then send me a thank-you via email, for enriching your life.

I've spent a small fortune on these golden globes of gorgeousness so far this month, but to me they're worth every penny. To be fair, they're actually the same price as supermarket mangoes - around £1-1.50 each, but because you don't normally buy supermarket mangoes in batches of five or six it seems more expensive. THIS IS IRRELEVANT. Would you pay seven small pounds to enter HEAVEN? Of course you would. So do it. 

You don't want to do much with an Alphonso mango. It's kind of like the early stages of love, the honeymoon period of a relationship. You don't care what you do; you'd be happy just to sit on the sofa all day together, or lie in the park, or generally carry out very little, because it's all about the company of your loved one.

It's the same with an Alphonso mango. You're just so happy it's there, you don't need to do anything to enjoy it any more.

However, should you want to elevate its deliciousness to extreme and sublime heights, try making this unbaked cheesecake. Baking an Alphonso mango is not a good idea; it can only dull that vibrant flesh and flavour. Instead, fold cubes of this startlingly orange treasure into a smooth cream cheese and coconut batter. Enjoy the contrast between the marigold fruit and the snow-white cheese. Set it with gelatine, and fold it luxuriantly over a buttery biscuit base enriched with the heady, citrussy perfume of crushed cardamom pods. Leave to set in the fridge, sprinkle with coconut, and serve.

I repeat, from my last post about this, what one of my friends remarked upon eating it: "This tastes like India".

Actually, given some unsavoury stories about Indian travel that I've heard from gap-yearing friends of mine (the "I saw my first dead body" story particularly springs to mind), perhaps I wouldn't want this cheesecake to taste like the real India. But in that it tastes like all the flavours you could associate, wistfully and longingly, with India and tropical climes - fresh coconut, super-sweet mango, fragrant cardamom - it's a perfect description.

Incidentally, it's even vaguely healthy - apart from the biscuit base (though I did use reduced-fat biscuits and a fraction of the butter traditionally called for in cheesecake recipes). The filling uses Quark, a fat-free cream cheese, and light normal cream cheese. Yes, there's sugar, but in terms of fat it's much better for you than traditional offerings. Plus with all that mango goodness in there, I'm sure it must be one of your five-a-day. 

You wouldn't guess it's healthy, though, from the taste. The filling is beautifully creamy, holding its shape yet melting in the mouth. It has a slightly sweet coconut tang which complements the fruity mango - I used coconut essence, which I managed to track down online. It's hard to get hold of, though, so use vanilla if you can't get any, or don't add any essence and instead dissolve the gelatine in the microwaved hot juice of one lime, rather than water. This variation is also delicious; I'm torn between which I prefer.

Either way, this is a perfect summer dessert. It can, of course, be made with normal mangoes from the supermarket, and will still be fabulous - just slightly less heavenly.

This time I made the cake in a 20cm tin rather than an 18cm tin, mainly because that way you get a thinner layer of cheesecake, which means MORE BISCUIT BASE per mouthful. Which is basically the whole point of cheesecake. I also used two mangoes in the cake instead of one, skipping the mango decoration on the top and just finishing with a light sprinkling of coconut.

Mango, coconut and cardamom cheesecake (serves 8):

• 10 digestive biscuits (normal or reduced-fat, if you want to make it slightly healthier)
• 50g butter, melted
• 10 cardamom pods, seeds crushed to a powder
• 2 ripe Alphonso mangoes
• 250g Quark
• 150g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp coconut essence (you can order this on eBay; if you can't find it, leave it out or use vanilla)
• 1 sachet gelatine
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 2 tbsp desiccated coconut

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Blitz the biscuits in a food processor and mix with the melted butter and cardamom. Scatter over the base of a greased, lined springform cake tin (18cm or 20cm) and press down with the back of a spoon to form an even layer. Bake for 10 minutes until golden and aromatic. Leave to cool.

Meanwhile, mix the Quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and coconut essence together with an electric mixer. Peel the mangoes and dice into small cubes.

Place the boiling water in a small bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine. Leave for a couple of minutes to partially dissolve, then stir to dissolve completely - if it hasn't all dissolved, heat in the microwave for a few seconds. Have the electric mixer ready, and pour the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture. Whisk thoroughly to incorporate, then quickly fold in the diced mango. Pour over the biscuit base and place in the fridge for a few hours to set (I left mine overnight).

When ready to serve, sprinkle with desiccated coconut and finish with mint leaves, if you like.

Rhubarb and ginger crumble cheesecake

This recipe was featured on ITV's Food Glorious Food in April 2013. I adapted the recipe slightly for the show to make a bigger, taller cake, so have updated this post with the latest version of the recipe (which can also be found in the Food Glorious Food cookbook). I hope you enjoy recreating it in your own kitchen!

Yes, my dear readers. I have gone and taken two of the best desserts in existence , and combined them into one luscious, creamy, buttery, crunchy creation.

I've been wanting to make this dessert since approximately April last year, when I froze the end of the season rhubarb with the express intention of doing just that. You know the stuff - those gorgeous pink stems, such a bright and vibrant fuschia they seem almost unnatural, quite unlike anything that could possibly have sprung up from the dark, dank earth. Sadly those colours don't last - as the season progresses, those stems progressively widen, darken, become stringy and sour. Still delicious, doused in a liberal coating of snowy white sugar, but best quietly hidden beneath a mound of buttery crumble or a blanket of pastry.

I froze the bright pink stuff to use in a dessert that would really allow its colour and natural sweetness to shine. Something pure and white to exaggerate its naturally beautiful qualities. I envisaged swirling it into a simple vanilla cheesecake batter, removing my finished creation from the oven or fridge to reveal a beautiful marriage of pink and cream curled lovingly around each other. Where the idea for the crumble topping came from, I don't know.

Oh wait, I do know. Plain common sense. Why would you NOT put a crumble topping on something?

I literally cannot think of any arguments against it.

I imagined breaking through that delicious buttery crust to reveal the yielding, creamy centre of a cheesecake rippled with tangy, sweet rhubarb. Not only would it taste wonderful, but the colours would be beautiful - the contrast of the snowy white cream against the hot pink fruit, mellowed by the pleasingly muted hue of the cheesecake base and the crumble topping.

I can't believe it took me nearly a year to get round to making this a reality.

This is just one version of a whole range of possibilities based on this theme. I chose to make a baked cheesecake, because I thought the slightly denser filling would marry better with the thick crumble topping - crunchy crumble on top of a quivering, gelatinous mousse didn't seem quite right, somehow.

I made a basic cheesecake mixture with ricotta, creme fraiche, eggs and sugar, adding quite a lot of vanilla because I love vanilla with rhubarb. I roasted the rhubarb in the oven with some sugar, mashed it with a fork to make a compote, then swirled this into the cream. It was spooned over a delightful crunchy ginger nut base (I make my cheesecake bases approximately two times more thick than is normal, because why wouldn't you add more butter and biscuit than required?) and topped with a simple crumble topping.

I say simple...I added some chopped almonds for crunch and used wholemeal flour and brown sugar for a more pronounced flavour, as well as a little ground ginger to complement the rhubarb and the biscuit base. I have to say, this was a great idea - wholemeal flour and brown sugar give it a much stronger 'crumbly' flavour - you can really taste the difference. I think I'll start making all my crumble in this way from now on. Plus you can even kid yourself it's healthy as it's wholemeal (that is how it works, right?)

I wasn't really sure when to put the crumble mixture on top of the cheesecake - too early and it would sink down into the cream cheese and end up ruining everything...too late and the cheesecake would overcook in the time it took the crumble to brown. In the end I removed the cake just over halfway through the cooking time, sprinkled on the crumble and put it back in (quickly, so that it didn't sink).

Somehow (I call it cook's intuition...some, however, may just call it luck), I timed it perfectly. The crumble cooked through to a rich, golden brown, oozing bubbling caramel juices down the side of the tin. The cake was creamy, fluffy and light but held its shape.

Until I tried to cut it, that is. It's quite hard to slice through thick crumble while not making a mess of the yielding mass of cream and fruit underneath...but it's not impossible. Use a serrated knife. No one will care once they taste this.

I was thrilled with how this cake turned out. You end up with something that is part pie, part crumble, part cheesecake. The rhubarb infuses into the cream cheese mixture, turning it a delightful pastel pink colour and lending it a tangy, fruity edge that pairs so well with the mild, sweet vanilla. Then you have the utterly satisfying crunch of the biscuit base followed by the gorgeous crunchy crumble. It's almost like eating rhubarb crumble with cream on the side, but all in one mouthful and with added biscuit.

And what on earth is not to like about that?

Rhubarb and ginger crumble cheesecake (serves 8):

• 400g rhubarb, cut into 2½cm lengths
• 4 tbsp water
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 drop red food colouring (optional)*
• 1 tsp arrowroot mixed with 2 tsp cold water
• 375g ricotta cheese
• 300ml half fat crème fraîche
• 1½ tbsp runny honey
• 120g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the base:

• 60g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
• 18 ginger nut biscuits, crushed
• 1 egg white (optional - helps prevent the base going soggy)
• For the crumble topping:
• 80g wholemeal flour
• 40g cold butter, cubed
• 40g demerara sugar
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 50g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp cold water
• Sprigs of mint to decorate (optional)

*The food colouring is useful if you're making this with late season rhubarb (as opposed to early forced rhubarb) which is greeny brown and looks less pretty in the end result. The food colouring helps make it gloriously pink!

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5. Butter a 20cm (8in) springform cake tin.

2. Put the rhubarb into a baking dish with the sugar and water, toss together and bake for 25–40

minutes, depending on the thickness of the rhubarb, until tender. Remove and leave to cool.

3. Meanwhile, make the base. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then mix in the biscuits. Tip the

mixture into the prepared tin and press it down evenly with the back of a spoon. Brush with the

egg white (if using) and bake for 10 minutes, until golden and firm. Set aside to cool.

4. Mash the cooked rhubarb to a purée with a fork. Drain well, then add the food colouring (if using).

Pour in the arrowroot mixture and stir to thicken. Set aside to cool.

5. Put the ricotta, crème fraîche, honey, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in a blender or food processor and whiz until combined. Transfer to a bowl and swirl the rhubarb purée through it with a

fork. Don't overmix – the idea is to create pink streaks.

6. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and put an empty roasting tin in the

bottom of it. Butter the sides of the cake tin again, then pour the cheese mixture over the biscuit base. Cover the tin tightly with foil, then place in the oven and quickly pour a jug of cold water into the empty roasting tin. Close the oven door and bake for 30 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, make the crumble. Put the flour and butter in a bowl and rub together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, ginger and almonds, then gently stir in the water to form small ‘pebbles’ in the mixture.

8. Remove the cheesecake from the oven, discard the foil and spread the crumble mixture over the top of the cake. Remove the tray of water from the oven and increase the temperature to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5. Bake the cheesecake for a further 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Set aside until cool, then refrigerate until needed. Remember to bring it back to room temperature 30 minutes before serving: no one wants cold crumble! Decorate with mint sprigs if desired.

Spiced pumpkin and pecan cheesecake

Is it possible to have a craving for something you've never eaten before?

I suppose it is, if you think about bizarre pregnancy cravings. Soap, coal, chalk, cigarette butts and laundry detergent are, apparently, not uncommon cravings for women with child. They're not items you're likely to have tasted before in life. I didn't eat pasta until I was around fourteen years old (shocking, I know). The first time I did, it was because I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to make myself a bowl of pasta (with oodles of grated cheese and a bit of crispy bacon, in fact). I can't really explain this; I just knew I'd like it.

So it is really quite plausible that over the last few weeks I've had a huge craving for pumpkin pie.

Being an American dessert, associated with Thanksgiving and this festive time of year, it's unsurprising that I, living in the practically provincial locale of Cambridge (UK), have never tried such a thing. However, Tastespotting and Foodgawker keep festooning my eyes lately with images of luscious-looking pumpkin pies when I'm trawling through their images during my daily food porn fix. Fluffy and creamy and delightfully marigold, they whisper sweet promises of sugar and spice and nutty, caramel undertones. Although I have never been near a real-life pumpkin pie, I can practically taste one as I ogle those gorgeous images.

Baking with pumpkin really isn't that odd. It's no different to making carrot cake, which we love over here in the UK - they're both orange root vegetables with a natural sweetness and moisture that makes them perfectly suited to baking. I first tried using pumpkin here, when I made some delicious little cake squares using butternut squash. I love the complex flavour of cooked pumpkin, sweet and nutty and buttery all at the same time, so I knew I'd love it when combined with other sweet things.

What I've made here is not really authentic, in that it's more of a cheesecake than a pie. There's no pastry involved. However, there is pumpkin, sugar and lots of autumnal spice, so I think it counts. It's also utterly delicious. The base is a simple mix of ginger nut biscuits and butter (can't really go wrong there - quite a lot of it ended up in my tummy before it ended up in the tin), with a filling of pumpkin and cream cheese bound together with egg and flavoured with orange zest, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla. Oh my, it is good.

I think, in terms of texture and appearance, this is the best cheesecake I've ever made.

The filling was the absolute perfect consistency, soft and almost mousse-like but still substantially creamy. I wonder if this is down to the fact that I put a tray of water in the oven while it cooked, to create a sort of steam bath for the cake. It didn't stop a couple of cracks appearing on the top, but it definitely gave it a wonderful texture far superior to any cheesecake I've made before. Instead of being a little dry and crumbly, it was perfectly moist and indulgent. This could, of course, be due to the addition of the pumpkin purée.

Because a) I was too lazy to make my own and b) I wanted something vaguely authentic, I used a can of pumpkin purée (you can get it in Waitrose or Ocado). I've never worked with this stuff before - it's just pure pumpkin, so it saves the faff of peeling and roasting your own. I'm sure you get a better flavour if you make your own (as I did for this delicious butternut squash cake), but I quite liked the look of this stuff - fluffy, smooth and orange, it turned the cheesecake mix a lovely golden colour. The use of spices, vanilla and orange zest really bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin, but you can't really taste it that much - you'd never guess it was in there if you didn't know. Instead, you just get a lovely sweet, slightly caramelly flavour.

(I almost wish I hadn't used orange zest, though - not because of the flavour, but because I grated most of my knuckle off while trying to get the zest off the orange. Fortunately I managed not to bleed into the cake, but it was a close thing. Those microplane graters are highly effective, but damn are they sharp.)

The combination of creamy, sweet, festively spiced filling against the crunchy gingerbread base is wonderful, but even better when you get the crunch of a pecan nut. I was going to grind these up and put them in the base mixture, but was worried their flavour would be masked. Instead I just toasted them whole and used them to decorate the cake. In future I'd use more, or grind them coarsely and scatter them all over the top, as they really lift the cake from being something special to something truly wonderful.

Pumpkin, pecan and ginger - a fabulous and scrumptious combination. Thank you, America.

Incidentally, if you haven't yet come to see/follow my new Facebook page, please do!

Spiced pumpkin, ginger and pecan cheesecake (serves 6):

(Adapted from 'Iowa Girl Eats', here)

• 12 ginger nut biscuits, blitzed to crumbs in a blender
• 50g butter, melted
• 600g light cream cheese
• 400g pumpkin puree (homemade or from a can)
• 130g light brown sugar
• Zest of 1 orange, very finely grated
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp each of ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• A large handful of pecan nuts
• Extra nutmeg, to decorate
• Icing sugar, to decorate

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (fan oven). Grease and line the bottom of a 20cm springform cake tin. Mix the biscuits with the melted butter and press into the bottom of the cake tin. Bake for 10 minutes, until golden and crisp. Remove from the oven. Turn the heat down to 160C.

Meanwhile, using an electric whisk, mix together the cream cheese and pumpkin puree. Add the sugar, zest, vanilla and spices, then finally add the eggs and beat to incorporate. Pour into the prepared tin.

Place an oven tray of water at the bottom of the oven, then put the cake in. Bake for about an hour, until it has mostly set but still wobbles a little in the middle. Remember that it will set more as it cools, so you don't want it to be completely solid.

Leave the cake to cool in the oven with the door ajar (this helps to stop it cracking), then remove to a plate. Toast the pecans in a dry pan or the oven, then scatter over the surface of the cake, or decorate neatly as I did. Grate over a little fresh nutmeg and sprinkle over some icing sugar, then put in the fridge until you need it (if it's been in the fridge for a long time, remove 20 minutes or so before serving).

Two redcurrant cakes

I've always been a bit of a magpie. When I was quite little I used to hoard sweets. Nothing unusual there, you might think - all children like to have lots of sweets. Except I didn't actually eat said sweets. Instead, I kept them in a special box that was like a mini chest of drawers; each type of sweet had its own drawer (jellies, caramels, hard suckable sweets, soft-centred sweets...) and I would consider it a great personal achievement if I managed to possess multiple colours of the same type of sweet. 

I could never understand why my childminder was so unreasonable about letting me to go the corner shop to get sweets, why she usually said no. It is only now that I realise I never actually told her that I didn't want to eat the sweets (I didn't even like them), just to add them to my collection. Not that she'd have believed me anyway, I'm sure, but I remember being struck by the unfairness of it all - where was the harm in going to get more sweets for the sweet box?! I suppose I owe my undecayed teeth and lack of fillings to her strictness, so I guess that's something.

Money was another one. Yes, I know it's not really unusual to hoard money. Generally most people need to do it - it's called "saving". However, as a small child, if I was ever given pocket money or (ah, the good old days) tooth fairy money, and said amount happened to include a particularly shiny coin, I would tape it into a notebook. I remember getting very excited about a positively radiant pound coin that I had acquired at some point. It took pole position in the notebook and I treasured it. Or at least, I did until one day I wanted to buy something. As a small child, a pound is actually quite a lot of money. Out of the notebook it came, though I did leave a note in its place reminding myself to replace it with another shiny specimen if I ever found one.

Ironically, I'm probably less in a position to sellotape unwanted pound coins to notebooks now than I was as a child. Seven year olds don't tend to have £15,000 worth of student debt to their name.

Later in life my magpie-like hoarding stretched to less edible items. Coloured gel pens was a phase early in secondary school; I had whole pencil cases bursting at the seams, struggling to contain these different-coloured pens. Sparkly varieties were a definite bonus. I don't even remember writing with them much; I think I just liked the security of knowing I had a whole collection at my fingertips.

Then came a phase in which I absolutely failed to resist any item of sparkly jewellery. I remember stumbling upon a shop called 'Bijou Brigitte' while on holiday in Spain. Now you can find those shops everywhere on the continent and I think some in the UK, but at the time I was convinced it was a one-of-a-kind find. Not only did it stock the gaudiest, glitteriest, unsubtlest jewellery you've ever seen, it was also incredibly cheap. At the time, 10 euros was the equivalent of about a fiver. Oh, for those halcyon days of cheap European jaunts.

I would go and fill a small basket with glimmering diamanté, giant fake pearls in pastel colours, rings with fake plastic gemstones the size of your big toe, and then proceed to wear most of my purchases at once. Walking through the Spanish sun, I must have looked constantly like I was trying to signal morse code.

I shouldn't have been let loose on the Middle East last summer. I returned carrying approximately two-thirds of Syria in a large bag purchased specially for the purpose of carting my hoard back home. Everywhere I turned were beautiful silks, gorgeous scarves, ornate gold and silver tea sets inlaid with (fake) gemstones, glittering jewellery, intricate wood and mother of pearl boxes, and delicate decorated pottery. Unable to resist, I handed over Syrian pound after Syrian pound, Jordanian dinar after Jordanian dinar, accumulating items to the point where I could probably have turned into a turtle without realising, so large and cumbersome was my rucksack. 

It's only natural, then, given my predilection for food, that my magpie-like tendency should extend to all things gastronomic. Certain foodstuffs just captivate me; I have to have them if I spy them on sale. It helps if they're shiny or colourful. Pomegranate seeds. Cherries. Bright pink rhubarb in late winter. Gorgeous green gooseberries. Silver-skinned, glittery-eyed fresh mackerel. Vivid yellow Pakistani mangoes or corn on the cob. Glossy purple aubergines.

At the moment, redcurrants.

I've never really appreciated the beauty of these jewel-like berries before, nor their flavour. I may have put a few in a summer pudding at one point, but it's only this year that I've really begun to experiment with them, especially after I picked some of my own early this summer in Oxford. I just love the refreshing tartness of a red or blackcurrant. Their flavour is complex, beyond that sourness - they have a hint of freshly-mown grass about them, a definite floral fragrance that makes them such a delicious and intriguing addition to desserts and other fruits. What's more, they are absolutely beautiful, particularly if you get a box of ripe, plump ones, translucent like tiny red crystal balls. 

This week M&S has been selling such redcurrants, and I have been powerless to resist. I already have four boxes in the freezer, so couldn't really justify freezing any more. Rather, I seized the culinary moment and came up with two delectable dessert recipes incorporating this most beautiful of berries. 

One is a simple baked cheesecake that tastes so much more than the sum of its parts. It couldn't really be much simpler to make, but the flavour is incredible. There's a hint of vanilla in the ricotta mixture that contrasts wonderfully with the tartness of the redcurrants, and a thick biscuit base to provide a delicious, buttery contrast. I used ginger nut biscuits for the base instead of digestives, but you couldn't taste the ginger once they were baked, which was probably a good thing as the vanilla and redcurrant combination was just so delicious on its own. 

It can be difficult to achieve just the right consistency and texture with a baked cheesecake, but I think this one is spot on. The filling has a hint of crumbliness, but is also smooth and creamy. It still wobbled a little in the middle when I removed it from the oven, which I think is the key to avoiding a dry, powdery cheesecake. It may not be the prettiest thing to look at, but the flavour more than compensates.

The cheesecake reminded me of one I used to love on the menu at Bella Italia, back in the day when I thought Bella Italia was the height of culinary sophistication (probably around the same time that I used to wear all that gaudy jewellery). There's just the right balance between the rich, crumbly filling with its light sweetness, and the depth of flavour from the fruit. I was going to adorn the cheesecake with a peach compote, but it didn't need it. It was perfect.

The other cake is a fairly dense, moist, pudding-cake incorporating the redcurrant's favourite partner, the peach. It's an unusual cake batter that uses Quark (fat-free cream cheese) to give it moisture and substance, meaning the actual cake is very low in fat. Chopped peaches and redcurrants are rippled through the batter and then scattered on top. Again, it perhaps doesn't look like the epitome of culinary aestheticism, but it takes wonderful. Besides, I like my cakes rustic. No stupid macarons or eight-tier buttercream layer cakes here, please.

I used a rather surprising ingredient in this cake. I've recently been sampling a new addition to the Jordans Cereal Country Crisp range - the Honey & Nut variety. It's a mixture of crunchy baked oat clusters blended with honey and mixed with flaked almonds and slices of brazil nut, rather like granola but in small chunks. As a big fan of the Jordans Crunchy Oats range, I was rather delighted by the Honey & Nut cereal. However, I did find it a little too sweet - unlike Jordans muesli, which I eat quite a lot, it does have sugar added to it. Nowhere near as much as all those horrible processed cereals like Frosties, of course, but I think I've just become used to sugar-free cereal. I also eat my cereal dry, without milk, so if you're a milk fan you'll probably find that the milk takes away some of the sugariness. Anyway, the Honey & Nut Country Crisp is definitely worth a try if you're bored of muesli or cornflakes - it really is delicious, and it also makes a great snack.

It occurred to me as I was making this cake that it would be nice to add another texture, something to make it a little bit crunchy. Enter the Honey & Nut Country Crisp. Because the cereal is so crispy already, having been baked, I figured I could add it to the cake batter and it would retain some of its crunch. I also sprinkled a little on top of the cake before baking. The result was delectable, much easier than faffing around making a streusel or crumble topping, and also slightly healthier.

The cake itself is really moist and delicious, studded with juicy chunks of peach and tangy redcurrants. I'm definitely going to use this Quark-based mixture again; it makes a fabulous cake that's ideal served warm as a dessert with some cream or ice cream. It's not particularly light, so if you like your cakes mousse-like, this probably isn't the one for you, but I like my cakes substantial and slightly gooey in the middle, which this certainly is. The addition of the Jordans cereal was a stroke of genius, even if I say so myself - the added honeyed crunch is exactly what the cake needs, contrasting beautifully with the soft fruit. This cake is best eaten straight away, as the cereal tends to go a bit soft after it's been in a tin for too long, but you should have no problem devouring it fresh from the oven.

Do you have a magpie-like tendency to hoard certain foodstuffs or other objects? I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Peach and redcurrant cake (serves 8):

• 250g Quark
• 4 tbsp milk (plus a bit more if needed)
• 30g melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 75g golden caster sugar
• 250g self-raising flour
• Zest of 1 orange
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g redcurrants
• 8 tbsp Jordans Country Crisp Honey & Nut, crumbled
• 3-4 ripe peaches
• 3 tbsp demerara sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 190C/fan 170C. Grease and line a 20/22cm cake tin with baking parchment.

Beat together the melted butter, quark, eggs, milk, vanilla and sugar until combined. Stir in the orange rind and fold in the flour to make a fairly stiff batter. (You may need to add more milk if it's too stiff, as I did). Roughly chop half the peaches and stir into the batter. Stir in half the redcurrants and half the Jordans cereal.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Slice the remaining peaches and arrange over the top of the cake. Scatter over the redcurrants, the rest of the cereal, and the demerara sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the cake is firm and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool a little, then serve warm with cream or ice cream.

Redcurrant vanilla cheesecake (serves 6):

• 12 ginger nut or digestive biscuits
• 30g melted butter
• 250g ricotta cheese
• 150ml half-fat creme fraiche
• 90g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp agave nectar or honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200g redcurrants

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Grease and line an 18cm springform cake tin with baking parchment.

Place the biscuits in a blender and blitz to fine crumbs. Mix with the melted butter and press into the base of the cake tin. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Lower the oven temperature to 170C/160C fan oven.

Mix together the ricotta, creme fraiche, sugar, nectar/honey, eggs and vanilla either in the blender or in a bowl using an electric whisk. The mixture will be quite runny, but don't worry. Gently stir in two-thirds of the redcurrants.

Pour the cheesecake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45-55 minutes or until turning golden on top but still a little wobbly in the centre. Leave to cool in the tin before turning out onto a plate and chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours.

To serve, decorate with the remaining redcurrants and dust with icing sugar.

Cherry amaretti cheesecake

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed by cherries. Every summer I get so excited by the crates of glistening blood-red fruit appearing in the markets. I buy them in great quantities when they're cheap, simply because it seems rude not to. They look so gorgeous and inviting with their glossy skins and delicate green stems, particularly when piled high in scarlet abundance under the July sunshine. Yet I've realised recently that they never fill me with anticipation. Apricots, on the other hand, whether small and underripe-looking or gorgeously plump and rosy-cheeked, always glow with promise. If ripe, I might slice them and eat them with ricotta on toast for breakfast. If not (and this is the more usual scenario), I'll slice them in half and bake them with a drizzle of honey and a splash of orange flower water, turning them into a jammy, marigold-coloured compote that bursts with exotic delight in every mouthful. Squat green Williams pears, though hardly exotic, whisper enticingly of their juicy, glassy, grainy flesh, so much so that I can hardly ever resist buying a few, either to eat as they are or chopped and scattered over a bowl of nutmeg-scented porridge. But cherries?

Cherries just don't sing to me in the same way as other fruits. They look beautiful, but I find myself buying them because they're a novelty, because they only appear in such abundance and at such low prices once a year. In fact, if I try and imagine what a cherry tastes like, I have real difficulty. Maybe I've just never been lucky enough to find decent cherries, but the ones I've eaten have only ever had a hint of berry-ness about them, a slight tartness with no real fragrant juice to emphasise it. Yet I remember drinking a glass of cold cherry juice on a sweltering evening in Istanbul last year, and thinking at that moment it was the most delicious thing in the world (of course, the fact that even my hair seemed to be sweating at the time may have been the reason for this). There is potential in the poor cherry somewhere, it just seems that I have trouble finding it.

I did, however, really enjoy the bakewell pancakes I made recently. As with apricots, cooking cherries seems to bring out a juiciness and a sweetness that they lack in their unadulterated state. The idea of turning that concept into a cheesecake had been niggling at the back of my mind for a while, and I thought I'd have a go before cherries disappear and we sink into the depths of winter once more. Essentially, I wanted to recreate that classic, almost over-the-top flavour combination of a bakewell tart. You know the kind: there's no subtlety about it. Rather, it's as if a sack of almonds has hit you over the head, followed by a vat of cherry jam. There you lie, almonds tumbling on the floor around you, some of them lodged in your ears and nasal cavity, while cherry jam oozes into your clothes, your hair, your eyelashes, until your very pores are saturated with the stuff. That's the bakewell tart experience I was seeking (though I didn't go quite that far).

I was initially going to use shortbread biscuits for the base, to emulate that bland, pristine casing of commercial bakewell tarts. Then I had a better idea, one that would take the almond flavour from lying-on-the-floor-covered-in-almonds to full-blown swimming-in-an-olympic-sized-pool-full-of-ground-almonds levels. I crumbled up some amaretti biscuits in a blender, mixed them with butter, lined the base of the tin and baked it for ten minutes to crisp it up. I kept the filling fairly simple: a mixture of Quark, cream cheese, icing sugar, and almond extract (for even more almondy goodness). I set it with gelatine. I'm quite into gelatine-based cheesecakes at the moment, mainly because you can put whatever you like in the filling without risking it disintegrating in the oven. They're also a lot neater to look at.

Instead of topping the cheesecake with a cherry compote, which seemed a) a bit boring and b) rather too reminiscent of those awful frozen cheesecakes you can buy, with an unidentifiable layer of rubbery neon-red jelly on the top, I decided to stir the cherries into the cheesecake mixture. Before doing so, I cooked them for a little while in lemon juice, water, brown sugar, and a drop of kirsch (cherry brandy). They softened into a lovely jammy compote, full of squishy, alcohol-saturated fruits, which I then splattered all over the cheesecake filling and stirred in.

Cherry-related disappointment aside, I really enjoyed this. It's not for those who don't like almonds (although perhaps it is - my Dad, who claims to hate almonds because he hates marzipan, had two pieces of this, and he never has seconds of dessert), because it has a very pronounced, slightly artificial almond flavour from the extract and the amaretti. To tone it down a bit, use vanilla in the cream cheese mixture, or use digestives for the base. The cherry compote, brightened up a bit with sugar, alcohol and lemon juice, really makes the most of this fruit. I still can't quite put my finger on what a cherry 'should' taste like, but I have a feeling the right place for it is swaddled in a creamy blanket of almond-infused dairy, like this one. The crunch of the base contrasts nicely with the soft, squishy fruit and its alcoholic tang, and the cream cheese filling is incredibly light and fragrant with almonds. A true bakewell tart experience, but in cheesecake form.

Am I being unfair to the cherry? Does anyone else find them as nondescript as I do?

Cherry and amaretti cheesecake (serves 8):

• 200g amaretti biscuits, plus extra for decorating
• 50g melted butter
• 500g quark
• 200g light cream cheese
• 200g icing sugar
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 sachet gelatine
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 250g cherries, pitted, plus extra for decorating
• Half a lemon
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 dsp kirsch (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Blitz the amaretti in a blender to fine crumbs. Mix with the melted butter and use to line the base of a greased 20cm springform cake tin, pressing down with a spoon. Bake for 10 minutes until crisp, then set aside.

To make the cherry compote, place the cherries in a small saucepan with a squeeze of lemon juice, a splash of water and the sugar. Boil and then simmer gently for about 15 minutes, covered, until the cherries have softened and released juice (if it dries out just add a bit more water - you want about 1tbsp left over in the pan). Taste - it might need more lemon or sugar to balance it. Add the kirsch, if using, and set aside.

Whisk together the quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and almond extract. Sprinkle the gelatine over the boiling water and leave for a couple of minutes, then stir briskly to dissolve (heat the water gently in the microwave if it doesn't all dissolve, then try again). Pour the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture, and whisk in thoroughly. Stir in the cherry compote, then pour onto the amaretti base in the tin.

Leave to chill for about 5 hours, or overnight if possible. To decorate, blitz some more amaretti biscuits and scatter over the centre of the cake. Arrange some whole cherries around the edge, and dust with icing sugar.

Mango, coconut and cardamom cheesecake

O, Alphonso mango season. How cruelly fleeting you are. Just when I've become hooked again on your luscious, juicy, fiery fruits of joy they are barbarously snatched away from under my nose and I am plunged headlong into a pit of gastronomic despair, forced to pine away for the next year in anticipation of the next time I can suck the honeyed nectar from those orbs of liquid gold, forced to make do with green-skinned, string-fleshed supermarket specimens that take a lifetime to ripen and then are never worth the wait. Here I sit, quietly weeping in my pit of despair, a bowl of inferior mangoes sitting in my fruit bowl, dreading the inevitable moment when I slice them open to reveal pale yellow mush with the mouthfeel of garden twine, fit only for the smoothie maker. Oh, alas.

Overdramatic? No. If you've ever tasted an Alphonso mango, you will understand my sorrow. Indeed, the first time I introduced a friend of mine to an Alphonso mango, she texted me the following:

"Elly this mango is divine. I literally feel like it might transubstantiate on its way down my oesophagus."

Enough said, really. However, for those of you sharing in my distress, there is a remedy. The honey mango.

These mangoes start to arrive just as the Alphonso season ends. They come from Pakistan and, like Alphonso mangoes, will rarely be found in the supermarket. You're most likely to obtain these treasures from an Indian grocery shop, where they are sold by the box at often bargainous prices (I got two boxes - nine mangoes - for £7). The tell-tale sign that these are something special, wildly different from the supermarket variety, is the aroma that greets you as you stand within a three metre radius of them. 'Honey' mangoes suddenly seems a very accurate name: the scent of them hangs thick and heavy in the air, sweet and musky, almost sickly but in a beautiful way, with notes not only of honey but also of toffee and butterscotch. The boxes sat on my desk for a day, tantalisingly emitting their heady aroma as I tried to work; eventually I succumbed. I sliced the flesh away from the stone, cut it into a hedgehog shape and sucked it from the skin. The juice is likely to dribble down your wrist as you eat one of these mangoes. That is how a mango should be.

Not quite Alphonsos, but I think these mangoes have a charm of their own. They lack the tartness of an Alphonso mango, possessing a rather more mellow, sultry flavour. It's earthy, somehow, and musky. While probably not flavoursome enough to hold their own in a sorbet, I really wanted to try out a dessert with these mangoes, especially because they were fairly cheap, unlike the Alphonsos, which I couldn't bear - at nearly £2 a mango - to do anything with other than suck them greedily from the skin until my mouth was neon yellow. I've never attempted to cook a mango, and decided nothing good could come of it in this case, so any form of tart or crumble was out. I hate cream, so a mango fool was not an option. I don't know why I'm even saying this, as it's not as if that was my actual thought process. No - I just immediately went "cheesecake". And that was it.

As I said, I didn't want to cook these gorgeous specimens, so an unbaked cheesecake was going to be the way forward. I deliberated for a while about exactly what I wanted this cheesecake to be. Very light, quite firmly set, studded with pieces of juicy, slightly grainy mango flesh. A crunchy biscuit base to contrast. A filling not overly sweet, to allow the mango to shine. I toyed with the idea of a lime-flavoured cheese filling, but I worried about overpowering the mango. What I really wanted was something quite rich and creamy, but ultimately fairly subtle, to complement the stunning golden flesh. I settled on coconut, after contemplating both vanilla and white chocolate. Mango and coconut are about as right for each other as me and Alphonso mangoes. They are a happy, happy partnership (albeit one tinged with sadness and crushing withdrawal symptoms - like all good relationships, I suppose).

The best thing about this is how simple the recipe is. The biscuit base is a classic mixture of crumbled digestive biscuits and melted butter. Or at least, it was before I had a brainwave. Cardamom. Maybe it's because I associate mangoes with India, and to me cardamom is a quintessentially Indian spice. As I removed the baked cheesecake base from the oven, it suddenly occurred to me that some cardamom in there could be no bad thing. Too late to mix it into the biscuits, I just crushed a few pods and sprinkled the ground seeds over the top of the base. I was worried it would be too overpowering, but in fact I think it was the secret to this cheesecake's deliciousness. 

I think cardamom might be my new favourite spice (but no, you won't be finding me at 'Cardamoms, seven' shortly). It's incredibly hard to pinpoint its flavour. There's something about it that makes me think of citrus, but also a floral quality, which I think is why it works so well with rose. It has a very clean taste, almost lemony, but if asked to describe it in one word, I would fail miserably. Yet I feel, as a cook, there is much to be exploited from cardamom, and I'll definitely be experimenting with it now. It works so well in sweet situations. Against the buttery biscuits of the cheesecake and the subtle coconut mixture, it did something magical.

The actual cake is a simple mixture of Quark (fat free cream cheese), cream cheese, icing sugar, coconut essence, and gelatine to set it. I stirred chopped mango into the mixture before pouring it onto the base to set in the fridge. It's so simple, but the results are so utterly wonderful. To decorate, I was going to just scatter a cubed mango across the top, but then had the idea of cutting the flesh into strips and making a sort of star pattern, laying them across the cake from the middle outwards. After one of them accidentally curled over, I realised a much better idea would be to just lay them across the cake in sinuous randomness. I think it looks beautiful. A sprinkling of desiccated coconut was the finishing touch.

I can safely say that this is the best cheesecake I have ever made. It is even better than I hoped it would be. I guessed the amount of gelatine, but it was absolutely perfect - the set is not too firm, like jelly, but thick enough to enable the cake to slice easily and to almost disappear on the tongue. The chunks of mango add a pleasing juiciness and sweetness, but their flavour is subtle enough to complement the cheese mixture, which has a very slight coconut flavour but one not strong enough to overpower anything - you probably wouldn't guess the coconut was there from the taste, but it definitely adds something extra. The real star, though, is the cardamom biscuit base. I'm now considering making a cardamom-flavoured digestive biscuit, because the two things together are so incredible. It lifts the cheesecake to new heights altogether; buttery, fragrant, sweet with spice. 

"This tastes like India", one of my friends said a couple of bites into her piece. I take that as a big compliment, as I have never been to India, but took my inspiration from flavours I associate with the country. Perhaps "this tastes like Pakistan" would have been more accurate, given the provenance of the mangoes, but as this cake is both a homage to the honey mango and a lament for the Alphonso mango (from Mumbai), the Indian connection is important, I feel.

Another excellent bonus of this cheesecake is it's fairly low-fat - Quark has no fat and I used light cream cheese. Without the buttery biscuit base (which reminds me - this video had me crying with laughter earlier in the week - if you've seen Masterchef, even only once, please, please click the link. I guarantee it'll be the funniest thing you've seen all day), you could even say this was a low-fat cheesecake. I even used 'light' digestive biscuits, so I did in fact tell myself it was healthy. Which is great, because then you can eat more of it.

One of my friends also pointed out that, when sliced, the cake looks a bit like one of those decorative soaps you can get with different coloured squarey bits in them (not a great description, but hopefully you know what I mean). I think it looks a bit like nougat. The contrast between the creamy coconut and the chunks of juicy fruit is even better than the rather lovely colour contrast would have you anticipating.

Mango, coconut and cardamom cheesecake (serves 6-8):

• 10 digestive biscuits
• 50g butter, melted
• 8 cardamom pods, seeds crushed to a powder
• 2 ripe honey mangoes
• 250g Quark
• 150g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp coconut essence
• 1 sachet gelatine
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 2 tbsp desiccated coconut

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Blitz the biscuits in a food processor and mix with the melted butter and cardamom. Scatter over the base of a greased, lined springform cake tin (mine was 18cm diameter, but 20cm would work too) and press down with the back of a spoon to form an even layer. Bake for 5-10 minutes until golden and aromatic. Leave to cool.

Meanwhile, mix the Quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and coconut essence together with an electric mixer. Peel one of the mangoes and dice into small cubes.

Place the boiling water in a small bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine. Leave for a couple of minutes to partially dissolve, then stir to dissolve completely - if it hasn't all dissolved, heat in the microwave for a few seconds. Have the electric mixer ready, and pour the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture. Whisk thoroughly to incorporate, then quickly fold in the diced mango. Pour over the biscuit base and place in the fridge for a few hours to set (I left mine overnight).

To decorate, slice the other mango into thin strips and arrange on top of the cake. Sprinkle with desiccated coconut and finish with mint leaves, if you like.