When craving for a cheesecake fix, know that with <10 ingredients, you can make one at home!
YouTube is a fantastic resource and i stumbled across Everyday Foods which is a channel under the Martha Stewart family. Having tried some of Martha's recipes before (first name basis oh yeah), i decided to give her version (or rather Sarah Carey her food editor) a try.
Everyday Food No Bake Cheesecake
Tools:-
Cake mixer or a whisk if you can whisk like nobody's business.
8 inch spring form pan. I think she uses a larger one but this is what i have.
Spatula
Stove for melting butter
Ingredients:-
For the base
- Digestive biscuits - I used 15 biscuits. In the YouTube video, she calls for Graham crackers but after going up and down the biscuit aisle in Jaya Grocer
- 1 stick or about 113 grams of unsalted butter that has been melted.
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
Directions -
Crush your biscuits using a food processor or the caveman style that i did. I put them in a ziplock bag and then beat them with my spatula handle. The food processor would have given be a smoother base but the beating style will give you some crunch in your base, which i thought was nice. After biscuits are crushed, add in the butter and stir until it looks like wet sand. Then stir in the sugar and butter.
Put ingredients in your springform pan, flattening it into the bottom. In the video, Sarah makes walls out of her base, however, i simply couldnt get the damn biscuits to stick to the sides so my base had a bowl shape instead. It worked just fine. I refrigerated my base after i was done. Because Malaysia is damn hot and its just not going to set nicely in this sweltering heat.
For the filling:-
- 2 blocks of Philadelphia Cheese. Each block is 8oz.
- 1 cup Greek Yogurt. I bought Farmers Union greek yogurt. Its sooooo good.
- 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar.
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 cup of heavy cream - whipped up of course. I bought Paul's heavy cream which is 250ml which equals to 1 cup.
Directions -
I whipped the cream first, till it had stiff peaks. I used my cake mixer and whisking tool and set my Kenwood Kmix to 4 and it whipped super fast!. After that i set the whip cream aside in the fridge. Your heavy cream needs to be cold (so i learnt) to get a quick whip.
After this, i put in my 2 blocks of cream cheese which had been sitting outside the fridge for bout 1 hour and was soft. With the regular Kmix tool i stirred up the cream cheese first to make it fluffy as directed, then put in the yogurt. It got a bit lumpy after the yogurt but rest assured after a bit of mixing it smoothened out. Then my sugar went in and after smooth, i put in the vanilla extract and salt.
Taking the mixture off the cake mixer, i mixed in half my whip cream as directed and then folded in the rest. I honestly don't know how much folding was required but since my cake turned out allright i must have folded just enough!
After this, the mixture goes right into the spring form pan on top of the biscuit base and viola! Into the fridge overnight! I was worried that the cake would just come flowing out when i removed the spring form pan but it stayed! Apparently the greek yogurt and the cornstarch in confectioners sugar keeps the cake out. WHich is why this recipe does not need any gelatine. Gelatine is gross.
As Malaysia is so hot, i found that freezing the cake for about 30mins before serving produced the best results. THE ABSOLUTE BEST RESULTS. The cheesecake will be nice and firm.
For topping, i bought strawberries and blueberries. However, these are really expensive in Malaysia so i think ill try mango next time. Or chocolate like Toblerone. Mmmmm imagine stirring bits of toblerone through the cake then decorating the top with those cute triangles. I reckon this could turn into an Oreo Cheese cake as well. Same process, just Oreo dust at the end.
Can't wait to make this again.
If you have read this, welcome to Siew Yin Loves and the Self Professed Aunty!
