We love adding a bit of gin into our baking (or no-baking) recipes!

With its mix of lemon, elderflower and berry flavours, this dessert is brimming with bright and beautiful summer tones that will make any gin-lover or cheesecake fiend salivate with glee!

The cheesecake itself is soft as a cloud and oh-so-delectably creamy. It mixes cream cheese and mascarpone with velvety whipped cream, all of which is then flavoured with floral touches elderflower syrup and mouth-watering fresh lemon zest and juice. A touch of vanilla then rounds everything out wonderfully.

Of course, a cheesecake is nothing without its biscuit base. For this recipe, we love to keep it traditional with a Digestive or Hobnob but feel free to mix things up with a Biscoff biscuit or Gingernut - there are no wrong answers! - just make sure the biscuit doesn’t have additions like chocolate or icing sugar.

The sweet, tart, berry-liscious coulis is then the perfect way to cut through the rich cake. Made with raspberries and blueberries (you can pick any berries that you like but we recommend checking what’s in season to get the best possible flavours), its juicy tones provide a drool-worthy contrast to the lemon and elderflower of the cheesecake. The gin then adds an extra level of delicious complexity with its hum of juniper.

To turn the flavour of the coulis up to eleven, we recommend picking a berry-flavoured gin or sloe gin to match the fruit - you can find plenty of options on the Craft Gin Club online shop!

- Find berry flavoured gins here!

Lemon Cheesecake with Gin-spiked Summer Berry Coulis

Bake or no-bake cheesecake? Unlike your traditional New York cheesecake, this is technically a no-bake cheesecake as the recipe doesn’t require you to bake the cheese filling. However, it does require a little baking to cook the biscuit base so that it will make a nice crunchy platform for your filling to sit on - just 10 minutes in the oven and no more.

What is coulis sauce? Coulis is simply a thick, smooth sauce made by blending and then straining fruit and vegetables. Here, we have made straining your coulis optional. This is because we enjoy a coulis with a bit more body and a jam-like quality that we think is delicious.

For the cheesecake:
300g full-fat cream cheese
200g mascarpone
300ml double cream
Zest and juice of 2 lemons
50ml elderflower syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
180g biscuits - Hobnobs or Digestives are our favourites for this recipe
80g butter, melted
2 tbsp caster sugar

For the coulis:
100g blueberries
100g raspberries
2 tsp caster sugar
50ml gin - a flavoured gin like Sunshine Cuckoo Gin or 58 Gin English Berries work best here

Preheat your over to 200C.
2. Bash or blend your biscuits and sugar into fine crumbs and stir in the melted butter.
3. Insert the base of a 20cm (8 inches) springform tin upside down so the ridges curve downward. Press the biscuit mix into the bottom of the tin so they make an even base.
4. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes and then leave to cool.
5. Fold together the cheeses with the vanilla extract, elderflower syrup and the juice and zest of the lemon.
6. In a separate bowl, whip the double cream until soft peaks form.
7. Slowly fold the whipped double cream into the cheese mixture in two halves delicately. Fully incorporate the first half before adding the second half.
8. Pour the cheese and cream mixture into the springform tin over the cooled biscuit base. Spread to the sides and make sure the top is even before leaving in the fridge for at least 6 hours.
9. Make the coulis by breeding together berries, sugar and gin. For a smoother finish, push the blended coulis through a sieve (optional).
10. To serve, either spread coulis over the top of the cheesecake or pour over individual slices. Garnish with fresh raspberries and blueberries.