Mascarpone is a creamy Italian dessert cheese, and is widely available these days. This cheesecake is fantastically tasty and simple to make. It looks especially attractive if you make it in a fluted tin, but any loose-bottomed tin will do. You can replace the figs with another fruit or berry if figs are not in season.
Ingredients
Biscuit Base
- 7 oz (200 g) digestive biscuits, crushed
- 4 oz (100 g) ginger biscuits, crushed
- 4½ oz (125 g) butter
Filling
- 18 oz (500 g) mascarpone cheese
- 9 fl oz (250 ml) quark
- 4 oz (100 g) sugar
- 1 oz (25 g) corn flour
- 3½ fl oz (100 ml) double cream
- 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
- 1 finely grated lime zest
- 3 free-range eggs
Topping
- 14 fl oz (400 ml) crème fraiche
- 12 fresh figs or berries, to garnish
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/gas 4).
- Melt the butter and mix it with the crumbs.
- Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of a fluted loose-bottomed tin (26 cm/10½ inch diameter).
- Prebake the base in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes and let cool.
- Whip the mascarpone and quark in a bowl until creamy.
- Mix in the sugar, corn flour, cream, vanilla seeds and grated lime zest.
- Mix in two eggs. Separate the third egg and only add the yolk to the mixture.
- Pour the mixture over the base and bake the cake until golden in the lower part of the oven for around 1 hour.
- Turn off the oven and leave the cake to stand in the oven for another 30 minutes.
- Let the cake cool and chill until it is refrigerator temperature.
- Whip the crème fraiche loosely with an electric mixer (just as you would double cream). Spread it over the cold cake and garnish with fresh figs or berries.