Sluttishly Sweet: Lemon and Ginger Cheesecake

Lemon cheesecake is my absolute favourite. Probably because of the M&S cheesecake slices that I can't stop buying. I've never tried to make it myself so I took this month's Just Desserts theme - Fred & Ginger - as an opportunity to get creative in my new kitchen.

Thanks to the addition of the ginger, this cheesecake has a spicy, buttery base which works well with the creamy filling. It fed around 20 at my flatwarming party this weekend. In fact, most of it was gone an hour after people started to arrive. I only got to have a tiny slice, the greedy buggers.

Lemon and ginger cheesecake (serves a flat full of drunken party guests, apparently)
You'll need:

• 50g butter
• 220g biscuits. I used a mixture of gluten free digestives and chocolate chip cookies - yep, this recipe can go straight into the 'easy to make gluten free' folder.
• 2tsp ginger
• 1 pack of ricotta cheese
• 150ml double cream
• 110g caster sugar
• juice and zest of two lemons

Make it!

1. Melt the butter on the hob and set aside.
2. Pop the biscuits in a plastic bag and bash the crap out of them. This is the most fun part of making cheesecake.
3. Mix the biscuits, ginger and melted butter together. Squish into the bottom of a 9 inch springform tin and leave in the fridge for half an hour.
4. Mix together the cheese, cream, sugar and lemon until smooth.
5. Pour onto the chilled biscuit base and leave in the fridge for a few hours. You can probably get away with chilling for four hours, but covered overnight is definitely best.
6. Feed to a flat full of hungry guests. Accept all compliments and bask in all the cheesecake-y glory.

Lemon cheesecake image from Raelene G's photostream on Flickr. I tried to get a photo of mine, but did I mention the drunk party guests? Let's blame them.