Cheesecake in a cup

Nuwan and I have developed an unhealthy habit of having dessert every day. So much for both our grand plans to lose weight. Here's something I like to call cheesecake in a cup and I love it because it's full of stuff I always have in the fridge and cupboard

Ingredients

• 6 biscuits  (I used graham crackers but you can use ginger snaps or nice biscuits)
• 2 tablespoons of butter melted
• 1 tablespoon of nuts (optional)
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 pack cream cheese
• 80ml cream
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

For layering

• berries
• passionfruit syrup
• lemon curd (recipe to follow)

Instructions

Crush the biscuits until you have a fine crumb. I used a mortar and pestle but you can just as easily use a food processor or pop them inside a plastic bag and bash them with a rolling pin.

Place the biscuits in a bowl and add the ginger, nutes and melted butter. Mix well. The butter should be well mixed through and the crumbs should look moist.

Chop the cream cheese into squares and all to the bowl of a mini food processor. Mix until the cream cheese is soft and smooth. Add the cream, icing sugar and lemon juice and mix until it's all evenly mixed through.

Now the fun part

Into a pretty class place a table spoon of the biscuit mix and top with 2 table spoons of the cream cheese mixture. Now all some lemon curd and a few berries.

Add a couple more table spoons of cream cheese mix and top with some passionfruit syrup and biscuit mix.

I used both lemon curd and passionfruit because I had both. If you have only one just use one. Other easy options are a bit of jam or to make it slightly healthier just stick to berries or a mix of fruit.

Chill int he fridge for at least 2 hours before serving with a big spoon! These ingredients made 4 of the above cups.

Lemon-passionfruit Meringue Tart

Ingredients

-       one tart shell baked through (I used this recipe from my friend Nat’s blog). Of course, if you're not GF just use plain old normal flour

Lemon/ passion filling

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/3 cup passion fruit pulp (if you don’t have this just use entirely lemon
• 4 eggs at room temperature
•  2.5 tablespoons of butter
• 2/3 cup of cream
• ¾ cup of sugar

Meringue

•  3 egg whites
• ¾ cup of caster sugar

Instructions

With this recipe it’s best to bake the tart shell all the way through, so blind bake for 10 minutes, remove the weights and then bake until brown and cooked through

In a medium saucepan place all the ingredients for the lemon filling and place on a low heat. Using a whisk stir continuously until the mix thickens to the consistency of a lemon curd.

Pour into the tart shell and bake for another 10 minutes in the overn at 180. The filling should wobble a little in the middle when shaken. Cool

 For the meringue place the egg whites in the clean bowl of a stand mixer and whisk until stiff peaks form

Now rain in the sugar until it’s all incorporated

Put your mixer on high and beat for 4 minutes. Rub some of the meringue between your fingers to make sure the sugar has dissolved

Spoon onto the baked and now cooled tart and use the back of the spoon to make peaks

Bake in the oven at 200 for 10 minutes until the meringue is lightly golden

Cool before serving with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream