Enticing summer in the middle of winter.

Bring on spring already. Seriously.

I’ve had a terrible cold for almost two weeks. Last weekend was a blur of coughing, lethargy and countless cups of tea. I spent a lot of time on the lounge staring at bad daytime television. There were times when I was too sick to read (which means I must have been close to death!) but eventually I could read again and I resumed working my way through George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. In hindsight, not the best choice of reading material for someone starting to feel depressed. Don't get me wrong, the books are absolutely fantastic, they're just a tad brutal and not so upbeat - in fact, they're the opposite of upbeat.

The last few weeks have involved a lot of soup and the odd dish with a lot of chili - I figured the extra vitamin C wouldn't go astray and the heat might burn the cold away. Dino made a delicious soup last night - a really lovely vegetable soup (made on home-made chicken stock) with barley and a hint of chili. Either the soup had miraculously healing qualities or I'd served my time, because this morning I woke up feeling normal.

Today, in celebration of actually feeling human, I thought I’d make something to remind us that spring isn’t too far away!

Baked Tropical Cheesecake

Base:

125g of biscuits – I used a mixture of ginger nut and plain milk biscuits – I wanted a hint of ginger

1.5 tbsp of butter (to start with – you may need to add more butter to bind)

• Preheat oven to 170ºC.
• Line a 20 cm springform tin with baking paper.
• Blend biscuits in food processor until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.
• Melt butter and add to biscuit crumbs and mix until the mixture holds together when you press it.
• Press the base into the springform pan and bake in the oven for five minutes.
• Remove from oven and cool.

Filling:

250 g ricotta

250 g cream cheese

2 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk

The juice of half a lemon

2 tbsp of passionfruit (use fresh in season or tinned – if using tinned, strain out some of the seeds for this part) + extra passionfruit for drizzling

A sprinkle of sugar (demerara is best)

• Blend ricotta, cream cheese, lemon juice, eggs and 2tbsp of passionfruit in a food  processor or with hand mixers – mix until combined – do not over mix.
• Spoon mixture onto cooled base.
• Drizzle passionfruit on the top and swizzle through with a skewer or chopstick.
• Sprinkle with sugar.
• Cover with foil and bake in the middle of the oven for around 45 minutes.
• Remove foil and bake for another 15 minutes until the top is golden and the centre is firm.
• Cool.
• I served mine with some segments of mandarin and a generous drizzle of passionfruit.

The base didn't set as hard as I hoped but it had a nice crumbly, gingery taste which went deliciously with the passionfruit and lemony cheesecake filling. Yum. My brother-in-law and his partner were over for lunch today and the cake was a hit.