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The crust: take 8oz / 225g of chocolate graham crackers (any plain chocolate biscuit will do) and crumble them into the bowl of a food processor. Add 4oz of malted milk balls and pulse to break them down to a coarse crumb. Pour 4oz / 125g melted butter down the tube and pulse until the butter is combined into the crumbs. Pour this mix into a 9 inch spring form pan and use a flat bottomed glass to press the crumbs down from the center of the base out to the sides. Then roll the glass around the sides of the pan to spread the crumbs halfway up. Put the pan into the fridge whilst you get the cheesecake filling made!

The cream cheese part: clean your food processor and put 8oz / 225g of room-temperature cream cheese into it. Add 2 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons superfine / castor sugar and 1 tablespoon of cocoa. Pulse to combine. Melt 8oz semi-sweet chocolate in a bowl (I melt it in 20 second bursts in the microwave), pour 2/3 of the chocolate into the food processor and combine with the cream cheese batter.

In mixing bowl #1: in a spotless, dry bowl, add 2 egg whites and using spotless, dry electric beaters, beat at high speed until the egg whites swell and turn foamy. Beat until soft peaks form when the beaters are lifted. Start adding 2 tablespoons of superfine / castor sugar and keep beating. The egg whites will turn white and glossy and have firm peaks when the beaters are lifted.

In mixing bowl # 2: pour 1 cup of whipping cream and beat with beaters until the cream is whipped.

Putting it all together: fold the chocolate cream cheese mix into the egg whites and gently stir from the bottom, in upwards motions, until the egg whites are combined. Now add this mix to the whipped cream and fold again. Don't be too rough or you will knock all of the air out of the mixture. Pour this on top of the crust in the spring form pan. We're almost done!

The impressive swirly bit: remember that melted chocolate sitting in the bowl? Well make sure that it's still warm and melted and add a good 2 tablespoons of malted milk powder and about 1/3 cup of cream. Stir like mad and have a taste: add more malted milk if you like. Pour this over the top of the cheesecake and use a knife to go around and around; that's how you get those swirly bits!

Patience is a virtue: albeit it an over-rated one. But in this case it has its own rewards. Let the cheescake set in the fridge (covered with cling film) for at least 4 hours

Before serving, run a knife around the sides of the cake pan to loosen the crust and unlatch the spring form.

There's something about this cheesecake, which I'm sure my mum got from an old Women's Weekly. We would beg her to make it...and after exhausting every mixing bowl in my kitchen to assemble it, I know why she resisted!...I have to admit that I added the malteasers because I woke up in the throes of jet lag, craving a slice of childhood and indulging in one of a suitcase full of malteasers that I'd smuggled with me on my last return from Australia.

Sure, I can buy malted milk balls here, but there is something about munching on the candy that I grew up with; my taste buds were out doing wheelies down memory lane on that bike I had when I was 8 years old. I might also add that I doubled the chocolate. In for a penny, in for a pound, huh? That's also how I decided to slather it all in the swirly choc-malt ganache. Mum would just say that I'm showing off, but she'd probably go back for a second helping too!

raw egg alert: some folks are shy of cooking dishes with raw eggs (like chocolate mousse) because there is a risk of salmonella. One tip is to soak your eggs in a mild bleach solution (1 part bleach / 10 parts water) then rinse them before you crack them open so that there is no bleach going into your dish. Apparently the salmonella is only found on the outside of the shell, not in the egg itself!