Gluts of fresh food, either straight from the tree or from the mountain in the freezer, are always inspirational when it comes to planning a meal for entertaining. On this occasion, for a Sunday lunch with neighbors, I wanted to use up some of our guavas in a dessert. We have bags of them in the freezer, which so far I have used for jelly and cordial. Sometimes we also eat them stewed for breakfast, drenched in cream.

As so often happens here, my choice of dessert is also influenced by the ingredients I have available to me at the time. Having recently traveled up to the capital, Lusaka, I had cream cheese and Greek yogurt in my fridge — hoorah! — therefore a cheesecake was a no-brainer. I thought up this gluten-free guava cheesecake after reading about a similar dessert in The Noshery.

Guava trees line the sides of our pineapple nursery.

The guava fruit: loved by the birds…