Passion-fruit cheesecake

• By Nick Camilleri Preziosi and Alex Mattei

For 6 people, you will need:

120g of butter, 400g of ginger biscuits, 250g of mascarpone, 75g of icing sugar, one vanilla pod, two sheets of gelatine, 400ml of crème fraîche, 300ml of double cream, eight passion fruit (ripe and wrinkled).

Melt the butter in a small pan. Crush the biscuits to fine crumbs and stir them into the melted butter. Tip them into a 22cm-diameter loose-bottomed cake-tin lined with greaseproof paper and smooth them flat. Refrigerate this for an hour or so until it is firm. You can speed up the process by putting the dish in the freezer. Beat the mascarpone and icing sugar together until smooth. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod with the point of a knife and stir them into the mascarpone with the crème fraîche. Soak the gelatine in warm water for 10 minutes. Whip the cream until it stands in soft folds, and then gently stir it with the gelatine into the mascarpone mixture. Add the pulp of six of the passion-fruit and mix this well. Scrape the mixture into the cake-tin and cover it with cling-film. Chill it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Just before serving, remove the cake from the tin, cut the remaining passion-fruit in half, and squeeze the seeds and juice over the cheesecake.