No Bake Berry Cheesecake

 

 

On Saturday night I went out to a friends house to have a celebration dinner- why celebrate? well be both had just started new jobs.

I mentioned in a previous post that my life was about to change and indeed it has.

Last week I started a new job as Cooking Tutor at Kitchen Things which is an upmarket Kitchen Appliance store chain in New Zealand.

My job will be to teach people how to help people decide which new oven is best for them through cooking demonstration classes and then also to help new purchasers get the most out of their new ovens and cooktops with classes tailored to their individual needs.

Most exciting huh!!- and right up my alley  and though a huge change from the designing job I’ve had for the last 10 years I am able to call upon the skills Ive developed in teaching photoshop, hosting retreats and classes, public speaking about scrapbooking and family history, and selling at tradeshows. All these skills I’ve learned helped me get the job.  - well that and my love of cooking and food!!

 

Anyway back to the dinner – I offered to take dessert and with the spring weather seeing the strawberries and raspberries in the supermarket I decided to make a cheesecake.

I didnt have time to bake one so I looked at numerous recipes and developed this no bake cheesecake recipe.

Basically a no bake cheesecake relies on gelatine to make it set, and doesn’t include eggs so in some ways its a lot less rich than a traditional baked cheesecake

 

Now I have to apologise in advance for the photo quality – I didn’t have my camera handy when we cut the cheesecake at my friends house and so were taken by Steve with his Iphone – he clearly needs some training in food styling photography!

 

Anyway  - here is the recipe that I developed.

NO BAKE BERRY CHEESECAKE

Ingredients:

1/2- 3/4 packet of plain biscuits ( for the americans I mean cookies – something like graham crackers or similar) for anyone else – wine biscuits or arrowroot or something similar. I used Griffins Krispies.
1/4 cup chocolate chips ( optional)
1/3- 1/2 cup of threaded or dessicated coconut
100gms butter, melted

500gms cream cheese
1 cup Greek Yoghurt
1/3 cup sugar
500gms  frozen berries- defrosted  or fresh ( I used a mixture of fresh strawberrries and frozen raspberries)
Rind and juice of one lemon
2tbspn gelatine
3tbsnp boiling water

1/4 cup sugar
3 tbspn berry or lemon liqueur such as framboise or limoncello – or lemon juice
1 further tspn gelatine dissloved in boiling water

Method:

Line the base and sides of an 8 inch loose bottom cake tin with plastic wrap.

In a food processor ,process the biscuits coconut and chocolate to crumb consistency. Add melted butter process for a few more seconds till blended.

Press into the base of the cake tin. ( Its up to you how thick you like your base – use lower quantities for a thinner base and more for a thicker base)

Chill base while preparing the filling.

After cleaning the bowl of the food processor,  process cream cheese, yoghurt , finely grated lemon rind, lemon juice and sugar till smooth.
If you wish the filling to be coloured pink then add some juice from the berries as well.

Stir the gelatine into the boiling water until it has dissolved and add to the cream cheese mixture.

Fold in half the berries .

Pour cheese mixture onto base and refrigerate till set ( about 2 hours for me)

In a saucepan place the rest of the berries and the sugar , liqueur or lemon juiceand bring to a slow boil to cook the fruit . Mash fruit into the juice that is created to form a sauce.
Add dissolved gelatine.

Pour sauce over the top of the chilled cheesecake and chill again until set ( about an hour was enough for mine)

When you are ready to serve lift the cheesecake out from the tin by the plastic wrap

 

Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
Slice and enjoy ( I reserved some of the fruit sauce for serving but thats up to you)