With home-made lime curd, which is too easy and so very good.

Cookies, cream cheese, chocolate, and lime curd

They say that cheese cake "can't fail" - well, the one I tried to make last week sagged beautifully, so this lime curd variant is my second try (more below).

I used whole wheat cookies instead of the standard digestive biscuits, and they work well with their more pronounced nutty flavour. I think I need to use a bit more butter than in the standard recipe - the crust was a bit too crumbly.
The two layer thing is just me not being able to choose between stracciatella and lime swirled cream cheese, but I like the result and it tasted really good.

The bottom

Prepare a springform tin with a piece of baking paper on the bottom, pressing the rim over the paper so that it sticks out. Process the biscuits in a machine until they look like fine bread crumbs. Add the melted but cooled butter and process until just hanging together. Press the crumb mixture on the bottom and sides of the tin, using the back of a spoon to smooth out the mixture. Refrigerate until firm and ready for the filling.

This time, I followed instructions on the package :-)

Which told me to dissolve the packet mix into tepid water, then beat with a mixer for one minute at low speed, until thoroughly mixed. Then add the cream cheese (or yoghurt), and the unwhipped cream, and mix this for 2 minutes at low speed.
I divided the mixture into two, and added the chocolate rasp to one portion, and some previously made lime curd to the other.
Pour the filling into the tin and refrigerate. Leave the cheese mixture overnight in the fridge, to make sure it's not out too soon.

I added the lime curd topping when it was freshly made, still luke-warm, after the tin had been in the fridge for about 2 hours.

The lime curd

Start off rasping the two limes. I used a cheap nutmeg grater (never used for nutmeg :-) and a veggie brush to clean out the grating holes; worked pretty well, giving me a fine ultra-green rasp. Then juice the limes. Melt the butter and sugar in a thick-bottomed sauce pan. Add the rasp and juice. Bring it to the boil, stirring well. Whisk the egg in a little bowl. Remove the pan from heat, and let cool for a minute. Then, while whisking the lime mixture, add a thin stream of egg to the warm mix. Return to a slow heat, making sure not to let the mixture boil, and stir for about 5 minutes. When it's too hot, the egg will curdle, so be patient.
Pour into a jar or small bowl and refrigerate.

So - what went wrong then?

Last week, I've made this super cheese cake. It was meant to look gorgeous - the uber-summer-cake. Except that I removed it from the fridge after 3 hours, and the filling just wasn't firm enough. It slowly sagged... (so it was eaten really quickly :-)
The idea was to have a cheese cake with vanilla-yoghurt and condensed milk filling. I put some lime curd at the bottom of the biscuit crust which I thought would look and taste nice. While the thing chilled, I slow-baked a slab of merengue from a whipped egg-white (2 hrs). This I broke into pieces, to decorate the top with. So after 3 hours I took it out and decorated it with whipped cream and merengue, dusted it with powdered sugar, and put fresh raspberries and mint leaves in between. Made a picture. And then disaster struck... :-) Oh, well, one lives and learns.