Passionfruit Cheesecake with Lime

This zesty and fresh Passionfruit with Lime Cheesecake challenges the status quo of desserts needing to be overly sweet to satisfy. The perfectly proportioned biscuit to cheesecake topping ratio ensures a balanced texture sensation with every mouthful. 

You can probably tell from my website, but I am definitely more of a savoury girl (versus sweet). When given the option of desserts at restaurants, I generally opt for cheese. And of all the five core flavours, sour is absolutely my number one choice! Think lemons, limes, vinegar etc. 

So this Passionfruit Cheesecake with Lime combines all my favourite things into one dessert. It will satisfy your sweet tooth, whilst providing savoury notes from the blended biscuit base. And the sour sharpness of lime and passionfruit cuts through both sweet and savoury in a perfectly balanced dessert!

The Perfect Christmas Dessert

I make this every Christmas as one of my dessert options (as the other is typically a comforting, but heavy option, like Sticky Toffee Pudding). It’s generally well received, and best of all? It can be made days in advance so you have one less thing to worry about on the day. 

See ‘Storage’ section below for information on storage. 

Ingredients for Passionfruit Cheesecake with Lime

Digestive Biscuits + Hobnobs: I opt for a 50/50 blend of biscuit as I like the texture and taste offering it provides. You can use one or the other if preferred. 

Butter: it’s rare I use unsalted butter (yep, even in baking), but unsalted is the preferred option here. And just the perfect amount to bind the biscuits together without being greasy. 

Cream Cheese: I typically opt for a supermarket own brand, as other big name brands sometimes have stabilizers in them. Versus own brand that typically only has cheese as the one ingredient.

Icing Sugar: this adds sweetness to the cheesecake topping, whilst also adding a helping hand with bulk. It’s light enough to sweeten without adding the texture of granulated sugar even caster sugar. Neither of these are suitable as it would add a gritty texture to the cheesecake topping.

Double Cream: you can’t substitute this ingredient – it needs to be double cream – as we need the high fat content to ensure we can ‘whip’ the cream. This is what provides the set texture of the cheesecake topping. Double cream is called Heavy Cream in the US (albeit fat content is higher in UK).

Lime

Passionfruit 

I’m not going to suggest substitutes for these considering they are the backbone of the recipe. Albeit in a pinch, you could use lemon instead of lime (although I personally haven’t tried the flavour combination). 

How To Make Passionfruit Cheesecake with Lime

Place digestives and hobnobs in a plastic sandwich bag and smash up with rolling pin. I like to beat the biscuits first and then use a rolling technique to ensure they’re ground down fine and uniform (without chunks).

Melt butter in microwave and stir through smashed biscuits and pressing down into the bottom of 9.5 x 2.5 inch cheesecake tin with removable side.

Add to fridge for 1 hour before progressing with next stage. Grate lime zest from outside of limes before juicing them, and retain the zest for decoration. Juice the limes until you have 5 x tbsp of juice for the cheese mix.

Add to a large bowl: cream cheese, double cream, icing sugar, lime juice & passionfruit pulp.

In stand mixer, or using electric whisk, whisk the mixture until thickened. It will thicken as you whisk it as the double cream will whip – this is what we want. Be careful not to over whip the cream though, as it could turn clumpy. Remember the cheesecake will solidify more when refrigerated.

Remove biscuit base from the fridge, top with the cheesecake mix and sprinkle over lime zest.

Place back in the fridge for minimum 6-8 hours until set. Decorate with optional extra passionfruit when serving.

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