Even though I made a lot of macarons, it doesn’t take much to fill them, so I was left with a significant surplus of lemon curd mascarpone. Too much to just sit and eat it from the bowl. So, again taking my cue from not-so-humble, I decided to use it up in a cheesecake. A few years ago my Grandpa went to a “Man in the Kitchen” cookery course and came back with a lot of big ideas and a lovely lemon cheesecake recipe (as well as some cracking chicken kievs). It’s a baked lemon cheesecake and has seen a lot of outings since it entered our family repertoire. My favourite thing about it is the roughly chopped preserved stem ginger in the base. In all the years I’ve used this recipe I have never once augmented it, which is very unusual for me, but its time has come. I loved the smooth, cool texture of the lemon curd mascarpone and really only wanted the cheesecake as something to spread it on top of so I determined to make a lighter feeling version of Grandpa’s recipe and leave out the lemon juice and zest which would normally be in the filling and build up a bigger crunchy base as my pedestal. It turned out rather well, perhaps – sorry Gramps – better than the original recipe!
