Passion-fruit and Lemon Cheesecake

This cheesecake shouts pure summer to me. Currently, the rain and low temperatures outside my window shout pure winter. Strange contrast really, a slight “in your face” to the weather. But the main point is, this is a mighty fine cheesecake.
Why such a mighty fine cheesecake? Lets go through. Crumbly, buttery biscuit base: classic good cheesecake. Thick, rich, creamy middle with very strong lemon “tang”. All topped off with big tropical flavour from juicy fresh passion-fruit. Plus the best bit: So Very Simple To Make!
  The recipe was sent to me from my Mum, and she found it on the Carnation Nestle website. Celebrity chef Phil Vickery has created loads and loads of recipes using all the Nestle products (condensed milk and soft caramel) and not only put all the recipes on the website, but also turned loads of them into “Pudcasts“ (videos of him making the creations): my new favourite thing. Its amazing the variety of dishes he’s thought up using these ingredients: from cookies and truffles to sundaes and mini treats to pies and tarts. And this lovely cheesecake!

The clever thing Phil Vickery discovered is that when condensed milk reacts with lemon juice, the mixture thickens dramatically. That's how this cheesecake is so simple: you don’t need to bake it or add gelatine to thicken it, the reaction has already occurred when you mix the lemon juice into the mascarpone and condensed milk mix. After a few hours in the fridge: voila! Creamy gorgeousness at your service. Then its just a simple matter of spooning over the passion-fruit. However, in the original recipe, Phil fills the cheesecake with a blueberry compote, something I chose to leave out. I thought it might overpower the passion-fruit, so I added the juice and zest of a couple of extra lemons so that there were complimenting bright flavours rather than overpowering ones. Also, the original recipe states to use 4 passion-fruit, but to get a decent covering like I had below I used 6. If anyone tries it with the blueberry, then do tell me how it went! You can find the recipe (and have a happy time browsing all the others) here. I personally have my eye on the Millionaire’s Shortbread….Enjoy!