First of all - respect to Wagamamas for coming up with this in the first place.  It is a really excellent cheesecake - second only to Sicilian Lemon - which I am guessing I could also copy by adding lemon instead of ginger and adding flaked almonds to the top, but I digress.  At £5 a slice the Wagamamas is a little bit too expensive for me to treat all my friends, so I scanned the internet for some similar type recipes and combined them to come up with my masterpiece... Pearl's White Chocolate and Ginger Cheesecake.  My sister describes it as a "truly fulfilled cheesecake."  And you can make it for about a fiver (less if you use really cheap ingredients!)

It's also very easy and you don't need a cooker for it (so I got special dispensation to make it for my work Baking Club when I burnt down my kitchen - it's a long story - well actually no, that's pretty much it, apart from the rumours that I only burnt down the kitchen to fill the flat with fireman and that's just not true.)

You need a big enough tin - or you can also use ramekins (I use the glass dishes you get left over when you buy Gu desserts - not that I have a lot of them :) and plenty of room in the fridge.

Base:

Ginger biscuits - I usually buy the Luxury Stem Ginger type biscuits as I generally make this for special occasions - but by all means experiment with cheapo ginger biscuits or even digestives if you like - today I used these as they just didn’t have any expensive ones!

1-2 packs ginger biscuits (I used one and a half packs)

Unsalted butter  (I used 125g today)

Fresh root ginger (if you want more of a kick)

Stick the biscuits in a bag - bash with rolling pin (very good to get small children to do this - they love it - in fact very good recipe for children in general).

Put butter in a bowl and microwave until melted (you can always melt a bit more if you haven't done enough - but don't make the biscuits really soggy).

Chop up the ginger (as much as you want to give the base a bit of a kick and balance the sweetness of the topping).

Mix together bashed biscuits, butter and chopped ginger.

Spoon into base, mush down until flat and stick in the fridge.

Topping:

The exact quantity is up to you, you can either make it very high, or just a small amount of topping to base - either is good!

One third white chocolate  (300g today, but have used 500g in the past for a really deep cheesecake).

One third mascarpone

One third cream

Fresh limes (I used one and a half today, but have used more)

Curl off a few white chocolate curls with a knife or potato peeler for decoration at the end (do the same with the limes).

Squeeze lime juice.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave - maximum of 20-30 seconds at a time, stir, stick back in, until it's all melted - leave to cool - but not harden.

Whisk cream.

Fold cooled white chocolate and mascarpone together (you can start adding most of the lime now - you have to taste a lot to make sure you get the right amount - what a hardship!)

Once mixed together slowly fold in the cream, and add any more lime juice to taste (do this very slowly - remember you can always add more, but very, very hard to take it out and this is also when it’s most likely to curdle - like it did today!)

Spoon on to the base (doesn't matter if the base is set yet), leave to chill.

Decorate with white chocolate curls and lime zest....

...or dark chocolate curls...

...or a swirl of cocoa...

...or anything you like really!

Try to wait before it's set to eat, but it's probably pretty good anyway (I'd say an hour is probably enough).

Lasts for a couple of days - or you can freeze and defrost if you like (especially individual ones - I often make a couple when I am doing a big one just for me to have later).

I'll make sure I get comments from the guys at work!   Just having my little taste test here and I can tell you that when it curdles it is not quite as smooth, but it still tastes phenomenal!

And the verdict is...

“Looks great... tastes great... “

“Really excellent.”

“Very good effort Pearl.”

“This is amazing.”

“Quality Cheesecake.MMMmmm, thank you very much. X”