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!

 

 

no-bake dark chocolate tart

I have spent many an evening this week thinking about this tart.  This is my adaptation of a recipe from our friend who has made her tart a couple of times for us and it is just so delicious.  It is also very easy to make as it is a no-bake recipe.

Her original recipe calls for double cream or whipping cream but I have swapped it out in favour of coconut cream.  I always have coconut milk in my pantry and if you don’t have coconut cream on hand, just leave a can of coconut milk to sit overnight and do not shake it before opening.  The coconut cream will rise to the top of the can and you can just use that.

crust: 180 grams digestive biscuits or graham crackers / 110 grams unsalted butter / 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

chocolate filling: 210 grams dark chocolate / 100 ml coconut cream / 40 grams unsalted butter / 1/2 tsp vanilla extract / 25 grams shelled pistachios

In a blender or food processor, blitz the digestive biscuits into crumbs.  Melt the butter for the crust in the microwave and add that along with the cinnamon to the blender.  Just pulse to combine everything together

Using the back of a spoon, press the crumb mixture onto the base and slightly up the sides of a tart pan or an 8″ springform cake pan.  You could also use pie plate if you don’t have either of those.  Pop into the fridge for about 30 minutes to chill and set.

In the meantime, you can lightly chop up the pistachios and set aside.  Bring a small saucepan of water to a simmer and set a heatproof bowl over top, making sure the bottom doesn’t touch the water.  Add the chocolate, coconut cream and butter to the bowl.

Keep stirring until everything has melted together.

Pour the chocolate filling into the crust and then sprinkle the chopped pistachios over top.

Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for about 3 hours to fully set the chocolate filling.  And voila!  Keep any leftovers (if you have any) chilled in the fridge.