recipe of the day

Hey, it's nearly Christmas! So I think it's time for a festive recipe. And here it is. This is basically a simpler and less instantly fatal (but still pretty rich) variation on the artery-clogging cholestravaganza I attempted a couple of years ago.

Mince Pie Cheesecake

You will need:

• Half a packet of Hob-nobs
• Half a packet of ginger nuts
• Half a packet of butter (125g or so)
• 2 250g tubs of mascarpone cheese
• 1 packet of 6 mince pies
• Lemon juice
• Brandy

Pulverise the biscuits in a food processor. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add to the biscuits, pulverise some more. Arrange the buttery biscuit crumbs in the bottom of a flan tin; put the tin in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Put the mince pies in the food processor, add a few splashes of lemon juice and a couple of capfuls of brandy. Don't puree it up too much; you just want to break up the pastry but leave the raisins whole. Scrape this out into a bowl, then put the cheese in the food processor and run it for a minute or so (you can skip this bit but it softens the cheese up). Dump this into the bowl with the mince pie bits, mix thoroughly and then smear the whole lot over the biscuit base and stick it back in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then eat.








You could basically do the same thing with any other easily pulverisable sweet foodstuff. Things that might be good include:

• Cadbury's Brunch Bars
• Crunchies
• Creme Eggs (phenomenally sickly I should imagine)
• Jaffa Cakes