Mermaid Kitchen: Cheesecake

It was my partner's birthday last month, which is an excuse for cake if I ever did see one. However, as I mentioned in the cannelloni post, I have really been struggling to get flour in! I'm guessing it's a pretty wide spread thing, my news feeds are full of flourless recipes. A friend of mine recently shared a delicious looking cheesecake she had made and was kind enough to pass on the recipe.

Here was my thinking:

Birthday + cheesecake inspo - flour = Birthday cheesecakes!

Birthday cheesecake

While I am very grateful to my friend for sharing her recipe, I ended up not using it. It was from the Philedephia cook book and was verging on the more technical side of things for my liking. Namely, it used gelatine. For absolutely no reason at all, I am terrified to make a recipe which calls for gelatine. Not to be deterred, though, I took to the internet to search for a cheesecake recipe which used soft cheese but not gelatine. And the internet provided! I came across this recipe from Recipe Community.

Soft cheese: check.

No gelatine: check.

Condensed milk: check.

Easy to make: check, check, check!

Since discovering this recipe, I have made them a couple times - with varying degrees of success. The recipe is clearly written for a specific piece of kit - it keeps talking about mixing on certain settings for exact time frames. I could not even tell you what bit of kit they are using, let alone how to translate it into hand whisker settings and time! My first batch came out ok, but the second were much too runny! They were more like posset than cheesecake, but tasty none the less. One other major thing I was lacking, other than the mystery machine, was a spring loaded tin and it did not feel like enough of an essential to pop to Wilkos to get one. What I do have, however, is a weirdly large collection of small, glass ramekins.

So runny!

I legit think I might be a lowkey hoarder.

However, they were perfect for making mini cheesecakes! In fact, I think some of them may have originally held cheesecakes! Plus, doing it as individual mini cheesecakes meant they were preportioned and we knew exactly how many we had each. No starting with giant slices and getting progressively slimmer as you run out of cake. Also, the second one would have been impossible to serve considering just how runny they were! We ended up eating most of those frozen. It was a last ditch attempt to get them to set, chucking them in the freezer, as well as extending their shelf life.

Because that is a small issue. These cheesecakes only last about five days when kept in the fridge. While cheesecake every night for pudding is the dream, sometimes you want to mix it up a little or spread out the cheesecakey joy. Popping them in the freezer has made them last much longer as there is no longer that pressure to eat them before they turn. I would advise, however, that if they have set properly the first time, let them defrost! That was some serious brain freeze!

Ready for the fridge - shame they never set!

INGREDIENTS

• 300g biscuits
• 60g melted butter
• 250g soft cheese (one pack)
• 1 can of condensed milk
• Lemon juice
• 1/4tsp flavouring - vanilla, lemon, etc
• Optional: Food colouring
• Optional: Fruit, chocolate chunks, coulis

For the main ingredients, it is roughly a packet for each which makes things easy. For our buttery biscuit base, I opted for hobnobs as they are my partner's favourite. I am honestly tempted to use ginger nuts on my next batch! The optional bits - colour and extras - these are things you don't have to put in but can if you want to be that little bit fancy. We have a freezer full of mystery frozen fruit and veg from the fella's mum's allotment, so I added a bunch of berries. Cannot tell you what they were, just red.

I am considering doing vanilla cheesecakes with a layer of coulis on the top, I reckon that could be pretty tasty. Of course, you could go full decadent and swirl in caramel sauce or chocolate chunks or honeycomb pieces etc. Oh my god, so many ideas I am actually drooling on my keyboard.

Lemon and red berry cheesecake

METHOD

1. Start with your biscuit base. Melt the butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds. If it's not entirely melted, do not worry, in the time it takes you to crush your biscuits the residual heat will have taken care of it.
2. Smash them biscuits! Empty the packet into a large mixing bowl and crush them with the end of a rolling pin or some other suitable implement. Get them looking nice and crumby. It's not the end of the world if there are a few bigger chunks, that's what we call texture.
3. Pour the melted butter into the biscuits and stir until evenly coated.
4. Next, put the mix into your cheesecake receptacles - spring loaded tin or ramekins or whatever. Press it down so it is firm and holds its shape. The rolling pin helps.
5. Refrigerate the base while you work on the cheesey bit.
6. Clean out your mixing bowl, save dirtying two, and then add the soft cheese, condensed milk, lemon juice, and flavouring of your choice. Colour would go in now too.
7. Mix, mix, mix! Have your hand whisk on a high setting and whisk for a while. You can feel it get thicker so keep going until you feel it is thick enough. Keep the lemon juice on hand, there is no exact measurement for it so it is an "add as much as you think you need" deal.
8. When whisked and thick, fold in any extras you are adding.
   
9. Grab the base(s) from the fridge and start dolloping the cheese mix on top.
   
10. Add any final decorations, if you are that way inclined, then put them back in the fridge to set for 24 hours.

Vanilla and red berry cheesecake

If you don't want to consume your weight in cheesecake over the following five days, pop them in a tupperware and freeze them. Just make sure they are all upright when put in the drawer, especially if they are runny. Yes, two fell over and leaked, effectively freezing themselves to the side of the tin I put them in. I make these mistakes so you don't have to.

What flavour cheesecake is your go to? I tend to like the fruity ones best because the fruitiness cuts through the sickliness of the rest of it. Having said that, I do enjoy the odd decadent cheesecake. Chiquitos do a delicious honeycomb cheesecake. I'm looking forward to getting a little crazy with my next cheesecake - maybe pair it with an equally decadent ice cream!

What do you think? Are you going to give this recipe a try? Should I get over myself and try a gelatine-y recipe? Lemme know, below!

Listening to: Daily Mix 3