Costanza is very generous from this point of view. She regularly  shares the pictures of the fabulous dishes she comes up with, giving us such joy. From her generosity we got the idea and the desire to publish some of the great recipes you make with our products. So here we are, sharing our first guest blog post in Monna Giovannella's Journal!

Costanza tells us she's an architect who doesn't miss the chance to cook when she's at home. Here, she works with flours: she kneads and experiments with all sorts of flours, both wheat flours and non wheat flours, like spelt flour for example. With our Organic Dicocco Spelt Flour Costanza has made bread and focaccia initially, heading then towards cakes and desserts which do not require too long to put together and can be enjoyed by the little ones too.

Costanza's cheesecake's recipe which we are sharing with you today was born by the coming together of different talents, as it so often happens. The talents in question are Costanza's, obviously, her dad's, who discovered his love for patisserie and baking once retired, and the talent of a friend of Costanza's, Benni The Precious. Costanza tells us that one day while hanging out with her "Precious Group of Friends", of which Benni the Precious is an estimated member, she asked for suggestions on something simple she could cook for her 2-year-old who loves cakes and cheese. That's where this cheesecake came from, combining Benni's suggestions for the cream, and using Costanza's shortcrust recipe for the base. Her recipe for shortcrust recipe has been developed over the years while cooking with Elisa, her eldest daughter, and recently modified with the introduction of spelt flour. Costanza has named this recipe after her 2-year-old son, Leonardo, her patient little recipe tester.

Shortcrust pastry

- 250g of Monna Giovannella Organic Verna Flour (or other semi-wholewheat stone milled organic flour)

- 100g of Monna Giovannella Organic Dicocco Spelt Flour (or other wholewheat stone milled spelt flour)

- 200g of butter

- 160g soft light brown sugar

- 2 eggs

- the zest of 1 unwaxed lemon, grated (or a couple of teaspoons of spreadable chocolate, such as Scrupoli)

- 8g of baking powder

Knead all the ingredients together if you are going to make the shortcrust pastry by hand. Stop kneading as soon as the ingredients come together in a uniform dough, you don't want to ruin the pastry by overheating it with your hands' warm temperature. If you are going to use a mixer, just place al the ingredients in the mixer and gently pulse until combined, again don't over work it so to avoid overheating.

Shape the dough into a 2-3cm thick rectangle, wrap it in cling film and rest in the fridge for a couple of hours.

You'll find that you'll have some leftover pastry after having assembled the cheesecake, use the excess to make delicious biscuits.

Cheesecake

- 35g of Monna Giovannella Verna Flour (or other semi-wholewheat stone milled organic flour)

- 250g of cream cheese

- 150g crescenza or stracchino

- 80g double cream

- 150g caster sugar

- 3 eggs 

- 2/3 of the previously prepared shortcrust pastry

Heat the oven to 170ºC fan.

Mix all the ingredients for the filling together to get a smooth thick cream and set aside.

Roll the pastry and place it in a 24cm diameter cake tin. Make sure the tin is lined with the pastry so to have a 6-7cm border, then pour the cream in it. Bake the cheesecake in the oven for 30-35 minutes. When the cheesecake is cooked, the shortcrust pastry will have a darker colour than usual because of the spelt flour and brown sugar.

Serve room temperature maybe with your favourite jam spread on top.

Bon Appetit!