KP+: No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake
With Glossy Strawbs!
Hello and welcome to today’s edition of KP+. Thank you so much for being here. This newsletter truly would not exist without you! I had such a blast writing the newsletter this week and excited to share today’s recipe/findings with you…
Before we get started… As I got to writing this newsletter, I realised that this edition is somewhat OVERSTUFFED with recipes and information, so I haven’t written up the recipe for the strawberry patch cream cake.
We explore the techniques used in it – the glossy strawbs, the whipped cream, BUT if you’re keen, I’ll write up the method and send it out in the imminent future! Let me know!
Cheesecake is custard, capiche?
One hill I will die on is that CHEESECAKE IS CUSTARD. I feel I’ve gone toe-to-toe with a lot of friends from the US about the lack of representation of custard in the US, only to then wonder – but what about cheesecake? HELLO??? Custard is dairy set with eggs and would you mind showing me your favourite cheesecake recipe and telling me what the ingredients are? Yep. In any case, I do love cheesecake and have written about it plenty here on the newsletter. From classic baked to basque’d, feta-whipped to white-chocolate-infused, jiggly ricotta style to pumpkin, we’ve traversed the cheesecake landscape together. I even wrote a recipe for deep-fried cheesecake after a visit to the Minnesota State Fair.
Even though I love baked cheesecake and am aware it is less faff than most people think, it is still a LITTLE BIT of faff. I do like no-bake cheesecake, but I wondered if there was something in between the two that could bridge the gap. Last month, I developed a very delicious recipe for Parisian Flan (a starch-thickened custard baked in a pastry case) and wondered… could THIS be my answer to a no-bake cheesecake that has the structure and flavour of eggs, but without turning on the oven?
As previously mentioned, I do think the lines between custards, flans and cheesecakes are already blurred, so why not step over them? I mixed up a 6-inch test batch, and I was DELIGHTED. It has the richness and thickness of a baked cheesecake, but the benefit of being completely creamy, like a no-bake, the whole way through. IS that a win-win, or what?
The Cream Cheese
I have been somewhat conservative with the balance between cream cheese, cream and milk in this recipe. You could certainly play with the ratios (though leave the milk alone, or else it will be so thick it may as well be butter) between the cream cheese and double cream, but with the addition of lemon juice, I think this has a great creamy, balanced tang. You could certainly up the lemon juice if you wanted, too. Welcome to the new world of no-bake cheesecakes!
For the creamiest texture, don’t skip the immersion blender before pouring into your case; otherwise, at least pass through a sieve before setting in your case. BUT BLENDING IS BEST!
The crumb
I tested this with a basic digestive crumb crust, as well as making my own oat biscuit (based on the 3pm oat biscuits). If you make your own crumb, you generally need less butter AND it stops being a no-bake cheesecake (haha), but in any case, I usually go for textural cues (wet sand that clumps in your hand) rather than accurate measurements.
The strawberries
This recipe could certainly stand alone, but topping with strawberries gives you a glorious dessert with freezer-aisle, mass-produced energy that I find absolutely irresistible. Most strawberry cheesecake recipes will have you cook the strawberry topping, but when strawberries are at their best, I don’t really like to cook them. Here, we get the best of both worlds! By coating strawberries in the strawberry gloss (recipe on KP), you get both freshness and jamminess. WIN-WIN!
Ok, lets make it!