The Perfect Passion Fuit Cheesecake (Non Baked)

Caterina L.'s Note:

Has earned me compliment after compliment - and a while it took to figure out this recipe too! After a trip to Starbucks I tried their passionfruit cheescake and thought it was so creamy and tarty I'd try making it. I didn't realise what a great result I'd get. A recipe made in callaboration with my mum. Notes: -You will need a blender or food processor. The evaporated milk must have been previously frozen and be in the process of defrosting - smooth and creamy. For this leave to defrost 3 hours. -Make sure you carefully follow the instructions from the powder gelatin box. If you don't, your dessert may never gelatinise and you might end with a soup over vanilla cookies -- not good.

• Total Time: 45 mins
• Prep Time: 25 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 6-8

Yield: 8.0 slices

For the base

• 180 g vanilla cookies
• 100 g butter

For the Filling

• 1 teaspoon gelatin powder (equivalent to 3 leaves)
• 150 g original philladelphia cream cheese (or any other soft cream cheese)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 passion fruit
• 1 (1/2 liter) can evaporated milk

For Decoration

• 3 ounces bitter chocolate

Directions:

1. Put the cookies in the blender and crush them. You don't want them as a fine powder because they will stick to the container later on.
2. Melt the butter gently in a microwave. 30 seconds should do the trick for most of it and the rest will melt with the gentle heat from the container. Mix with the cookies very well. Don't be tempted to add more butter - you don' t want a dough. You just want the cookies to stick together.
3. Cover a pyrex container approximately 11x7 inches and 1 - 1.5 inches deep with the base you just made.
4. For the filling: Dissolve the powder gelatin as directed in the package,.
5. Boil the passionfruit in plenty of water and then cut them in halves. Use a colander to catch the seeds and keep the juices from inside the passionfruit in a cup. You should have at least 3/4 cup of it. Keep the seeds.
6. In the blender mix the juice of the passionfruits - but make sure you leave at least 2 tablespoons of juice for decoration, the evaporated milk, the sugar, the gelatin and the cream cheese. Once the blend is smooth and homogenous, pour over the pyrex container and put in the fridge. For an extra kick you can squeeze a lime's juice into the blend. It will give it a bit more of tartness over the passion fruit flavour.
7. Once gelatinised (wait a minimum of two hours), pour over gently the remaining passionfruit juice, which should look a bright yellow/golden. Pour it in zigzag or swrils or just however you think it'll look nice. Add some of the seeds on top if you'd like, and then grate a bit of chocolate to finish.