At long last they are here. Big and small, red and not so red, and all smelling of sun and summer. Strawberries. Again I will tread the path to the market for fresh fruit. I already have a special punnet, traditionally bought with the first portion of strawberries. Then, also traditionally and consistently, I will forget to bring it back to the shop to exchange for another one. So towards the end of summer, I will have at least four punnets and the strong resolution of giving them back when I next go shopping.

Today I have a recipe for some simple and extremely tasty mini cheesecakes with ricotta cheese and strawberries. You can make this dessert all year round – it works with every kind of fruit. In the winter serve it with chocolate sauce. This dessert has another asset. You can prepare them the day before and leave them in the fridge. Then you only need to decorate them. Providing that there is something left to decorate...

Ingredients (for 12 small cheesecakes):

250g of ricotta cheese
50g of butter
100g of shortbread biscuits
50g of caster sugar
lemon zest and lemon juice from half of a lemon
1 egg
1 egg yolk
150ml of 30% sweet cream
0.5 kg of strawberries

1 tablespoon of caster sugar.

Heat the oven up to 160C. Put some paper muffin moulds into the "dimples" of a baking pan for muffins.
Crumble the cookies very thoroughly and mix them up with melted butter. Put one and a half teaspoons of the mixture into each mould and knead. Mix the ricotta cheese with the egg, yolk, caster sugar, juice and lemon zest. Whisk the cream with the 50g of caster sugar and mix it with the cheese mass. Put it into the baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes and leave to cool down in the closed oven. Clean the strawberries (leave the nice ones for decoration). Blend the rest with one teaspoon of caster sugar. Arrange the chilled, small cheesecakes on a plate. Fill the dimples in the cakes with strawberry mousse. Put half of a strawberry on each one. Decorate with the rest of the fruit.

Enjoy your meal!