no-bake cheesecake

I don’t know why I haven’t been making more no-bake cheesecakes in my life! I have made more cheesecakes than I can count and I know basically every trick in the book for getting cheesecakes to bake up just right.  But this was just so damn easy!!!  And while not like a baked cheesecake, I think it’s just as delicious – just different.  The filling is much lighter and mousse-like and just lightly sweetened. Nothing wrong with that.

I decided to make this today because for the first time since we moved to Saudi, I found bricks of real cream cheese!  (All that’s ever been available is the spreadable form of cream cheese in tubs.)  This is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Cherry Cheesecake recipe and it is just so easy and soooo delicious.  Just note that while I’ve already made a more substantial crust, this recipe doesn’t yield the tallest cheesecake.  Which we’re totally happy with but if you want a tall/deep cheesecake like say New York-style, then I would suggest you double the ingredients for the filling.

Crust: 250 grams digestive biscuits or graham crackers / 150 grams (6 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted

Filling: 300 grams (10 oz) cream cheese, room temperature (the kind in brick form, not in a tub) / 60 grams (1/2 cup) icing sugar / 1 tsp vanilla extract / 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice (which I forgot – oops!) / 1 cup heavy or whipping cream

Optional topping: 3 cups of strawberries, hulled / 2 tbsp granulated sugar

Blitz the digestive crackers or graham crackers until they’re crumbs in either a blender or food processor.  Add in the melted butter and pulse to combine.

Press the crust mixture into the bottom of an 8 inch springform pan.

Pop into the fridge just to chill and let it set up a bit while you move onto the filling.  Beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla and lemon juice until smooth.  I used the paddle attachment on my stand mixer because I’m lazy but you could always just do it by hand.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until you get medium peaks. (Nigella’s recipe said to just “lightly whip” but I figured medium peaks was a good middle ground.)  Again I used my stand mixer with the whisk attachment but you could just whisk it by hand.

Using a spatula, gently fold the whipping cream by hand into the cream cheese mixture until everything is combined and smooth.

Gently spoon the filling onto the crust and spread evenly.

Cover with clingfilm and chill and set in the fridge for minimum 3 hours or overnight. (I obviously went with the bare minimum.)

If you want you can have the cheesecake on it’s own. Or you can top it with some macerated strawberries.  The shop was completely out of fresh strawberries so I used some defrosted frozen ones – not ideal but still did the trick. Simply mix the strawberries with the sugar and let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.  I piled up most of the strawberries on top of the cheesecake with some extra on the side but you can do whatever you’d like obviously.  Slice up and enjoy!

 

 

meissner quarktorte

This is a German cheesecake made with quark, a type of fresh cheese that is common in numerous European countries.  It’s lighter than North American cheesecake and has a very different texture; maybe kinda like a cross between a cheesecake and a spongecake.  If you’ve never had it before it’s definitely worth trying.  We had eaten this type of cake when we were in Germany last year except we had no idea what we were eating at the time.  But now we know!  This recipe was graciously passed on to me by my German friend here and is an old family recipe of hers.

You can find quark packaged in plastic tubs and it’s available at Save-on-Foods in Regina.  The recipe also calls for packaged vanilla sugar, which along with quark, is something I didn’t even know existed.  Apparently it’s really popular in Germany and you can find it here too (I think I saw it in Safeway) but I just made some myself since I already had sugar and vanilla beans.  I filled a 250 ml mason jar with granulated sugar and scraped the seeds of 2 vanilla beans into the sugar. I rubbed the seeds into the sugar with my fingers and buried the pods in. Then I popped the lid on, gave it a shake and let it sit for a week or so.  You can do that or I guess it may be easier to just buy the packaged stuff!  OK, onto the actual recipe.

125 g unsalted butter, room temperature  /  6 large eggs, yolks separated from the whites  /  200 g granulated sugar  /  1 pkg or 9 g vanilla sugar  /  1 lemon (which I forgot to include in the photo, oops!)  /  1 kg quark  /  100 g semolina  /  14 g baking powder  /  1 tbsp all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 356F.  Using  a stand mixer, cream the butter.  Next, mix in the sugar until well combined and then mix in the egg y0lks, again until well combined.  Then add in the juice and the zest of your lemon.  Now mix in the quark, semolina, flour and baking powder until you get a smooth batter.

Next, you have to whisk your egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  Obviously I wanted to use my stand mixer ‘cus my arms are pretty damn weak so I transferred my batter into another bowl, washed out the mixer bowl and then used that for the egg whites.  Switch to a whisk attachment and whisk the whites until you get stiff peaks, being careful not to over-whisk and deflate them.  Next, gradually and gently fold the egg whites into the batter until all mixed in.

Gently spread the batter into a well-greased springform cake pan (I think mine is 9 inches) and bake for 1 hour.

After an hour the centre of my cake was still a bit jiggly in the centre so I thought it wasn’t done and popped it back in for a few minutes but it quickly browned up within those few minutes.  In hindsight, the centre would’ve kept cooking a bit even after taking out of the oven so don’t be concerned if your centre doesn’t seem fully set yet; it’s still ready.  Let it cool in the pan which will take at least a few hours.  Don’t be surprised as the centre will deflate as it cools.  After it’s cooled, wrap with clingfilm and set in the fridge.  Since cheesecakes usually need to be chilled, I left it in the fridge for I think about 5 hours before slicing into it.

I had to give away cake to keep Rock from eating it all and my toddler would not stop stuffing cake into his mouth with his hands.  So, success!