Cheese cake

I have a sweet tooth. Give me sweet over savoury any day. A terrific young producer, Alex, at work gave me this cheesecake recipe after hearing me moaning about the tubs of Philly cream cheese I found at the back of my fridge (about four tubs that miraculously were still in date). For some bizarre reason, every time I did a supermarket shop I thought I needed cream cheese. And this recipe was a simple and super sweet way of making sure none of them went to waste!

Ingredients: 3 packets Oreo cookies (or any other crumbly biccie) one quarter cup melted butter, 850 g cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, cream to whip for the top (if you want) strawberries/raspberries to top (or keep it plain like I did)

Method: Roughly chop one packet Oreos, finely chop (or chuck in the blender) the rest of the Oreos and make sure they're really fine and crumbled. Now mix them with the melted butter in a bowl. Press the biscuit mix into the bottom of a round cake tin. Make sure it's packed in tight to all the edges, and then put the base in the fridge.

Put the cream cheese in the micro for 10 seconds just to soften it slightly. Beat the soft cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer, all together in one big bowl. Don't be precious about adding things slowly. Just all at once is perfect.

Add the roughly chopped Oreos to the mix. Use a spatula to fold in the biscuits. When that's well combined, get the base out of the fridge (make sure it's cold and a bit solid, which would take around half an hour) Once it's ready, pour the filling in the cake pan and spread it evenly with a spatula.

Pop in the fridge for at least 3 hours, and then it's ready to serve. Add whipped cream and berries to the top if you want. I loved it plain.

Success rate: Two out of four. Perfect for the 'grown-ups', it was a bit rich for the girls. All the more for ME!