Baked Cheese Cake With Stewed Prunes

FILLING
375 g Quark
120 g Sugar
3 Eggs
1 Lemon; grated peel
1 pn Salt
75 g Butter
20 g Flour
1 tb Kirsch; (optional)

GARNISH
24 Pieces prune; pitted
3 Pieces cinnamon
250 ml Water
100 g Sugar

To prepare the pastry, place the flour on the work top, mix in the
sugar and add the small dice of butter. Work in the butter to a
crumble stage, then add the beaten egg and work it until the pastry
is just holding together wrap it in a plastic bag and let it rest in
the fridge for 1 hour.

Roll out the pastry to a thickness of 3-4mm. Line the cake tin, cut
off any excess and leave to rest for another hour. Then lay some
greaseproof paper onto the paper and fill them with old dried beans
and blind bake the pastry on 180C/gas 4 for 35-40 minutes or until
baked to a light brown colour. Remove the paper and cool.

For the filling, pass the quark through a sieve. Mix in the egg yolks
and half the sugar and beat in the mixer until light and fluffy. Add
the grated lemon peel, salt, warm butter and Kirsch and mix. Add the
flour and mix.

Whisk the egg whites with the rest of the sugar until stiff and fold
into the cheese mix. Pour into the blind baked tart base, spread
evenly with a palette knife and bake at 150C/gas 3 on lower shelf for
20-30 minutes and cool.

For the prunes, bring the water, sugar and cinnamon stick to the
boil, add the prunes, bring back to the boil and cool.

To serve, cut the cheese cake into 8 pieces, dust with icing sugar,
dress on a plate with three pieces of prunes with a little stewing
liqueur and a sprig of mint.

Cheesecake is best served at room temperature.