So far it’s been a glorious autumn – some even call it an Indian summer, as we continue to have sunny days here in London. There’s already quite a lot of leaves on the ground and I can’t wait for a day of apple picking, which I might get around to doing this weekend.

In the meantime I am busying myself with figs, which are also in abundance right now. Just make sure you buy them ripe, as they won’t ripen after picking.

I love eating them as they are as much as oven roasted with some honey drizzled over but for today’s receipe I am using them to top of orange and chai infused cheesecakes!

The flavour mix of figs, oranges and all the spices from a chai tea is very complex and satisfying yet not as difficult to make as you might think…

The little individual jamjar cakes make a nice addition to a brunch buffet (something very popular in Germany).

For 6 -8 portions you’ll need:

• 6-8  (depending on their size) ovenproof jamjars or similar glasses
• an ovenproof dish, that will hold all the jamjars and has sides reaching up to at least half the size of them

• 150g oat biscuits
• 100ml orange juice
• 4 teabags of Chai Tea
• 200g cream cheese
• 250g quark
• 100g sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 20g flour
• 2 oranges
• 4 figs

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

In a small pot, add the orange juice to 100ml of water and bring to the boil. Take off the heat, add the tea bags and let them steep for 10 minutes, then take the tea bags out.

Put a kettle on and while you wait for the water to boil, place the biscuits into a plastic bag and crush them to small crumbs with a rolling pin. Divide the biscuit crumbs between the jamjars and try to press them down a little (I say try, as I struggled to do this, since there is no butter to help keeping it all together…but you might have better luck than me).

Beat the cream cheese, quark, sour cream and eggs with a whisk until well combined. Add the sugar in two batches, followed by the flour and again, mix until well combined.

Continue to slowly whisk the mix while you pour in the now infused orange juice, which give you a very runny batter. Carefully pour this on top of the breadcrumbs and set the jars into the baking dish.

Place the dish on the lowest shelf in the oven and pour the hot water from the kettle in, so it goes around the glasses, and just about reaches the top of the baking dish.

Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Carefully take the dish out of the oven and then place the jars on a rack to cool down.

When the jars have cooled down, get on with the fruit topping, by cutting the figs into 4-6 wedges and filleting the oranges. Assemble a few pieces of each on top of the cakes and serve!