PREPARATION OF THE CRUST

The recipe is written for a baking sheet with diameter of 25 cm. I wanted a higher cake, that’s why I used a kilogram of white cheese but it will work just as good with a half a kilo. Only then also halve the amount of eggs.

Grind the biscuits in a blender until fine “flour”. Sift them into the bowl and mix with the sugar, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder. Melt the butter and mix among the cocoa mass.

Grease the baking pan with the butter and pack them in the double layer of aluminum foil. Press the cocoa mass at the bottom of the baking tin and set aside.

APRICOT FILLING & COULIS

Wash and stone the apricots. Cut the first half of them into small pieces and boil with 2 tablespoons sugar and juice of 1/2 lemon to very soft. Get them through a sieve and leave to cool. This is your apricot coulis.

Take the second half of the apricots, cut into large pieces and cook until they soften with 3 tablespoons sugar and the second half of the lemon juice. If the apricot pieces are softer but not too soft, sieve them and put the pieces apart and let them cool completely. The juice you can use as limonade.

COMPOSITION OF THE CAKE

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Whisk together in a large bowl cottage cheese, the vanilla extract and vanilla sugar for a minute. Add one by one the eggs and beat until a homogeneous mixture.

Divide the cooked apricots over the pastry. Pour cream cheese filling over crust. Drop apricot coulis by the teaspoon, or a wooden skewer or toothpick on top and swirl sauce into filling.

Transfer to oven. Carefully ladle boiling water into roasting pan to reach halfway up sides of cake pan. Bake until cake is set but still slightly wobbly in center, 55 to 65 minutes.

Transfer cake pan to rack; let cake cool completely. Refrigerate, uncovered, 6 hours or overnight. Before unmolding, run a knife around edge of cake.

Instead of apricot you can also use other fruit such as raspberries, peaches or other.