Lemon, lime and passion fruit cheesecake tart
-
Published: 10 Mar 17
-
Updated: 18 Mar 24
Is it a cheesecake? It is a tart? Even better, it’s both. Try this zesty lemon, lime and passion fruit tart for a dinner party dessert that’s guaranteed to impress.
-
Serves 8-10
-
Hands-on time 1 hour, oven time 1 hour, plus 3 hours chilling
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 60g caster sugar
- 130g plain flour
- 60g semolina
For the citrus filling
- 230g caster sugar
- Finely grated zest and juice
- 3 lemons
- Finely grated zest and juice 2 limes
- 4 large free-range eggs, plus 4 yolks, beaten
- 200g unsalted butter, softened
- Pulp from 3 passion fruit
- 1 gelatine sheet (we used Costa Fine Leaf, from Waitrose)
- 80g full-fat cream cheese (we like Philadelphia)
- 50g icing sugar
You’ll also need…
- 23cm diameter fluted tart tin (4cm deep), with a removable base
Method
- Whizz the butter and sugar in a food processor until smooth. Add the flour and semolina, whizz to combine, then tip onto a work surface and bring together by hand into a dough. (If you don’t have a food processor, beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the flour and semolina and bring together with your hands to form a dough.)
- Grate the dough into the tart tin, then quickly press evenly into the base and up the sides of the tin with your fingers to make a tart case. If it starts to feel greasy, chill it in the freezer for 5 minutes, then continue. Freeze for 1 hour.
- Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Line the chilled pastry case with foil and fill with baking beans. Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the foil and beans and bake for 3-4 minutes until the base has no grey patches and feels sandy. Set aside.
- Meanwhile, make the filling. Heat the caster sugar with the lemon and lime juice and zest (reserve the juice of ½ lemon) in a large pan over a medium heat until dissolved. Turn the heat to low and add the beaten eggs and yolks. Whisk with a balloon whisk until the mixture starts to thicken, then swap to a wooden spoon and stir for 10-12 minutes until thick and curd-like. Keep stirring to stop the mixture curdling. If it looks like it might curdle, remove from the heat, keep beating and return to the heat once it has cooled a little.
- As soon as the filling has thickened, pour it through a sieve into a bowl and, using the wooden spoon, beat in the softened butter, bit by bit. Stir in the passion fruit pulp.
- Soak the gelatine leaf in cold water for 5 minutes. Heat 3 tbsp of the filling in a small pan, remove from the heat, squeeze the water out of the gelatine leaf, then stir it into the hot filling until dissolved. Stir the mixture into the filling in the bowl.
- In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese with the icing sugar and the reserved lemon juice. Pour the filling into the pastry case, then dollop small blobs of the cream cheese mixture over the top. Use a skewer to swirl the mixture into pretty patterns. Leave the tart to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours before slicing.
Recipe from February 2017 Issue
Nutrition
Nutrition: per serving
- Calories
- 576kcals
- Fat
- 32.5g (18.8g saturated)
- Protein
- 9.2g
- Carbohydrates
- 61g (35.2g sugars)
- Fibre
- 1.5g
- Salt
- 1.9g
delicious. tips
Freeze egg whites in a freezer bag, marked with the date and number of whites, for up to 3 months.
Make the pastry up to 1 month ahead and freeze, wrapped in cling film and foil. The tart can be made up to 48 hours ahead and kept in the fridge.