Saturday, November 30, 2013

Easy No-Bake Eggless Cheesecake

(Adapted from Steve's Kitchen - Cheesecake Recipe - No Bake)

 
This post is a sequel to my first one about New York Style Baked cheesecake. Cheesecake is a versatile dessert that be prepared very easily at home...without any baking!
 
While hunting around for no-bake cheesecake recipes, I stumbled upon this wonderful video. You can take a look here.
 
Non-bake cheesecake is a recipe that you can make without any cooking per se. Mainly it needs to be chilled in the refrigerator and serve chilled once it is set. In this sweltering heat, it is simply perfect! So, without further ado, let me jump right in to the recipe:
 
 

Ingredients:

 
For the biscuit base:
 
Arrowroot or digestive biscuits: 10-12
Butter: 3 tablespoons
Sugar: 3 tablespoons
 
For the cheese topping:
 
Home-made paneer - made from 1.5 liters of toned milk
Whipped cream - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4th cup
Juice of one lemon
Zest of Lime - 1 pinch
Vanilla Essence - 1 tablespoon
Yoghurt - 6 tablespoons
Gelatin - 3 and a 1/2 teaspoon
 
For decoration:
3 tablespoon of Mango Jam
 

Process:

1. First to prepare the biscuit base, crush the biscuits with your hands. Then dry grind them into a fine powder in a food processor. The biscuit mix will look something like this:
 
 






 
 
 2. Now pour the biscuit base into a plate. Mix butter and 3 tablespoon sugar with this mixture.
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 3. Mix well with your hands and make a layer of this mixture at the bottom of the springform pan. Make sure you press some of this mixture to the sides of the pan so that it forms a strong base for the cheese topping.
 

 









4. Keep the pan in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to set.
5. To prepare the cheese topping, add the paneer, yoghurt, sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice to the food processor bowl.
6. To get lemon zest just grate a whole lemon using a hand grater. You will get snips of lemon peel. Add a pinch of this grated lemon peel to this mixture.


Grating the lemon


  
7. Now make a smooth paste of this mixture after adding the whipped cream. You will get a thick batter, slightly more runny than a cake batter.

8. Mix gelatin with 2 tablespoon of water at normal room temperature. (Vegetarians can substitute gelatin with china grass or Agar Agar). In a few minutes the gelatin will bloom and look like this:












9. Now place the gelatin in a water bath. Stir slowly till the gelatin dissolves into a clear liquid. Do not let the gelatin boil.



10. Mix the gelatin thoroughly with the cheese mixture. Pour the cheese mixture over the biscuit base.


 
8. Now place the pan in the fridge. Keep it overnight for the cheesecake to set.
9. In the morning, take out the cheesecake from the fridge. The top surface will be firm to touch.

10. To prepare the topping take 3 tablespoons of mango jam in a pan. Add 1/3rd cup of water and let the mixture simmer over low flame. The jam will melt and get mixed evenly to form a smooth jelly. Cool this jelly and pour it over the cheesecake. Place the cheesecake in the fridge for another 10 minutes.
11. Voila! The cheesecake is ready. Slice and serve. (It was a superhit with my little one. She devoured her cheesecake slice in no time!)






I am sending the recipe to the Kolkata Food Bloggers online event: Beat the Heat.



 
 
 
 

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

New York Style Baked Cheesecake

(Adapted from Foodnetwork.co.uk: New York Style Cheesecake Adapted for India)


I have always wanted to bake a cheesecake. Even after baking a number of cakes, the cheesecake remained a elusive dream for me just because I did not have a springform baking pan. Now, a cheesecake is a delicate thing and it cannot be baked in a regular baking pan for the simple reason that is difficult to demould. A springform baking pan has a removable structure. You can remove the upper portion whereas the cake can sit pretty on the base of the pan. Sort of like this:



Two days back, hubby got me a springform baking pan and all my secret desires of baking a cheesecake just kicked in!

The cheesecake is made entirely of cream cheese. If you do not get cream cheese easily, you can substitute it with home-made paneer. Of course, if you are using store-made paneer, just crumble it with your hands.

I got a very good recipe adapted to Indian taste from here.

Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

(My cake pan is 8 inches in diameter. So the ingredients are given as per the size of the pan.)

For the biscuit base:

Digestive or arrowroot biscuits: 10-12
Granulated sugar: 3 tablespoons
Butter: 3 tablespoons

For the cheese topping:

Paneer - 500 grams
Yoghurt - 6 tablespoons
Vanilla essence - 1 tablespoon
Eggs - 3
Sugar - 3/4th cup
Flour - 2 tablespoons
Jam - 5 teaspoons ( I used Kissan Mixed Fruit jam)

Process:

1. To prepare the biscuit base, crumble the arrowroot or digestive biscuits. Dry grind the biscuits in a food processor to get a fine powder.
2. Mix the butter and 3 tablespoon sugar with the biscuit powder. Spread evenly at the base of the greased cake pan to form a layer about 1/2 inch thick. Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees C for 10 minutes.
3. Place the cake pan in the pre-heated oven and bake for 10 minutes till biscuit base is firm to touch. Keep aside to cool.
4. Next, prepare the cheese topping. In a food processor, mix together paneer, yoghurt, vanilla, flour, and sugar. Mix well. If required, push the mix down with a spatula in between.
5. Add eggs one by one. Whisk well. You will get a smooth white mixture, slightly more runny as compared to cake batter. Pre-heat the oven once again to 150 degrees C.
6. Now pour the mixture over biscuit base and bake for 40-45 minutes till the center of the cheesecake is firm.
7. Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature.
Just out of the oven!












8. Dot the surface with jam.










9. Chill in the refrigerator overnight. Next morning remove the cheesecake from the fridge. Cut into wedges and serve. Enjoy!