Lemon and Ginger Cheesecake

 One of my good friends recently asked me to make a lemon cheesecake as a thank you present. Any excuse to experiment with new recipes. I decided that lemon cheesecake needed a little helping hand in the flavour department from stem ginger. It may not be an obvious pairing but it is one that works very well. In the past I have made no bake key lime pies, by using citric acid with cream it actually sets the filling without the use of gelatine or cooking an egg rich filling. The principles for this cheesecake and a key lime pie is more or less the same, different citrus fruits have different levels of citric acid in them so depending on what fruit you use will determine the amount of juice required. I feel like this was a great success, I'll wait for my friends opinion with bated breath.

You will need:

For the Crust

250g of crushed digestive biscuits

200g of ginger nut biscuits

175g melted butter

2 tbsp of vanilla sugar

For the filling

500g of Mascarpone cheese at room temperature

300g cream cheese at room temperature

3 tbsp of good quality lemon curd

4 pieces of stem ginger in sugar syrup finely chopped

5 tbsp of the sugar syrup from the stem ginger

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar

the zest of 5 lemons

150ml of lemon juice

1 tin of sweetened condensed milk (397g tin)

600ml double cream

1 tsp of lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

In a food processor blend the biscuits until they are a fine powder, if you do not have a food processor you can place the biscuits in a plastic bag and bash them with a rolling pin until they are a fine powder. Mix the biscuits with the melted butter and the vanilla sugar. Push the base mixture into a buttered and lined 9 inch spring form cake tin, I push the biscuits in the bottom and up the sides. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes and set aside to cool.

In one bowl mix the condensed milk, double cream and lemon juice until the mixture is thick.

In another bowl mix the mascarpone and soft cheese together until fully incorporated, add the lemon zest, finely chopped stem ginger, the syrup, lemon curd, vanilla extract and lemon extract. Mix the thickened cream with the cheese mixture and mix until incorporated. Empty the filling into the cake tin and place in the fridge to set fully. Leave for at least five hours or better yet overnight. Decorate with the ginger syrup and a little lemon curd that has been let down with water so that it is at pouring consistency.