Peach and Apricot Cottage Cheesecake (Recipe by Annabel Karmel)

This cake is simple to make, uses no cream, requires no baking and looks very impressive (what more could you want!). A lovely cake to make for a special tea party. It also freezes very well so that you can make it in advance.

Ingredients:

• 1 x 800g tin apricots
• 2 x 135g packets peach jelly
• 750g cottage cheese
• 300ml fromage frais
• 275g ginger biscuits
• 75g butter or margarine, melted
• 1 x 400g tin apricots
• 3 tablespoons apricot jam, sieved
• A little grated chocolate (optional)

Drain the large tin of apricots and reserve eight tablespoons of syrup. Dissolve the jelly in this syrup in the top of a double boiler (or use an ordinary saucepan on top of a saucepan containing simmering water) and leave to cool. Put the cottage cheese through a mouli to make a smooth texture. Put the drained apricots into the mouli to make a puree and stir these into the cottage cheese. Stir in the cooled jelly mixture and the fromage frais.

Crush the ginger biscuits in a food processor and stir in the melted butter or margarine. Press the crushed biscuits onto the base of a 25cm round cake tin and pour over the apricot cheese mixture.

Place the cake in a refrigerator until set and then decorate with the drained apricot halves from the remaining tin of apricots. Dissolve the apricot jam in one tablespoon of water and brush this glaze over the top of the cake. You can decorate the cake with a little grated chocolate if you wish. Makes 10 portions.