When I was a kid, one of my favourite past times (aside from making potions with my next-door neighbours to poison Adam Lambie, who lived up the road from us... sorry Adam, if you're reading this) was eating stuff straight from the garden. Be it snowpeas plucked from the trellis, cherry tomatoes picked from the stakes, or carrots pulled from the beds, it's surprising that there were ever any veggies left over for my parents to cook with, such was the force with which my brother and our friends attacked the garden with.
One of my favourites, if one could be chosen, was passionfruit. I can remember setting up camp on top of the jasmine vine which grew in a metre wide clump all along the top of our wooden fence, occasionally climbing down towards the bottom of the yard to gather handfuls of fresh, ripe passionfruit from the vine further along. We'd rip into them with our teeth, scooping out the pulp and then... perhaps the best bit... using the leftover husks as part of aforementioned potions. Just kidding. I loved passionfruit then, and I love passionfruit now.
My first exposure to the somewhat less wholesome delights of cheesecake came a bit later on, courtesy of a party at the ranger station in the National Park which my family was living in at the time, a setting which today would probably be entertaining the verge of gourmet. But no, the novelty of a cake coming IN A PACKET was probably responsible for at least half of the joy I experienced the first time I tried the marvellous sweet yet slightly savoury, crumbly yet creamy delights of Sara Lee Frozen Lemon Cheesecake.
I don't think I actually tried "proper" freshly made cheesecake for at least five or six years after that initial experience, and perhaps with a slightly guilty conscience (even more so than the curried sausages recipe...) I admit that I preferred the pre-made on that occasion, and probably the next ten or so, until I tried a baked ricotta "New York" (yeah, like the pizza) style at a country cafe. It was then I realised that while frozen Sara Lee will always have a special place in my heart, variations on what I consider to be the classic aren't all that bad.
So with all that reminiscing aside, and with the knowledge that I don't really dig on sticky things that much, I present to you the following recipe which gives ultimate bang for your buck in the dessert stakes. After all, there's so many rad savoury things to eat out there, I know I don't have the time or belly space to fit both sweets in at the same time (nor the patience to make biscuits from scratch for the base, nor the anti-capitalist leanings to avoid referencing to brand names in this recipe...). Combining passionfruit and cheesecake in the same dish makes sense on both gastronomic and gutsonomic levels, and this recipe is so easy you could get your kids to make it while you do something fun like drink sparkling wine and talk nonsense.
1 packet plain sweet biscuits (I used Arnott's Marie), crushed to crumbs in a food processor
125g unsalted butter, melted
2 packets room temperature light Philidelphia cream cheese.
1/2 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
250mL thickened cream
Pulp of five passionfruit (about 1/3 cup in total)
Extra passionfruit to serve
Method
1. Take a 20cm round springform pan, grease and line the base with non-stick baking paper. Place pan on a baking tray.
2. Mix the crushed biscuit crumbs with the melted butter in a bowl until well coated. Press the crumb mixture onto the greased walls and base of the pan. Place the pan in the fridge for at least half an hour to set.
3. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees celcius.
4. Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and beat with an electric beater on medium speed for a few minutes until creamy. Pour in the caster sugar and beat for another couple of minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition.
5. Decrease speed and pour in the passsionfruit and cream. Beat for another minute until combined well.
6. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the biscuit base, bake in the oven for fifty minutes to an hour, until golden on top and firm. Turn off oven and cool in the oven for an hour, then refrigerate for another two hours. Serve with extra fresh passionfruit and a glass of sparkling wine or two.
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