Lemon, mango and coconut cheesecake
This recipe is nice and easy. It was one of the first recipes I created for my website. It’s a firm favourite now I can tell you! Mango is quite mild so the lemon helps bring a bit of zing to this dish – and it’s not overly rich. Beautiful subtle flavours and textures. I used Krispie biscuits because I like the coconut with the other tropical flavours, but you can just use wine biscuits or shortbread if you don’t like coconut.
Ingredients
1 packet Krispie biscuits (or add another half packet if you want a thick base)
3/4 cup shredded or dessicated coconut
125g butter, softened, almost melted
250g cream cheese
½ cup icing sugar
Zest of 4 medium lemons
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 cups cream, whipped
2 x 400g tins mangoes, drained.
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp gelatine (or use Agar-Agar if you are vegetarian)
1/3 cup boiled water
1 fresh mango, peeled and thinly sliced
Method
Crumble the biscuits into a fine crumb, either in a food processor or wrapped in a clean teatowel, bashed with a rolling pin. Mix in the softened butter and coconut. Press the crumb mixture in an even layer into a springform cake tin lined with a circle of baking paper. (if you don’t have one, just use a ceramic dish.)
Beat the cream cheese, icing sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice until thick and creamy. Mix in the whipped cream with a spatula. Spread the mixture on top of the biscuit base evenly, smooth it out and refrigerate for 15 minutes or so.
Blitz the drained tinned mangoes in a food processor until smooth, or finely chop it then mash it up.
Mix the boiling water, sugar and gelatine, stirring briskly with a fork until dissolved. Cool slightly, then add to the mango mixture. Mix well and then pour on top of the cheesecake. Refrigerate for at least an hour or two to set the topping, or overnight.
Toss the mango slices in a bowl with 1 tsp lemon juice and arrange on top before slicing and serving. For a nice sheen you can melt a little apricot jam with water and brush over top. Serve at any time of day!