by
Aug 10. 2024
Cheesecake
Recipe: No-bake cheesecake
Makes 20cm cake (serves about 12)
Preparation time 30 minutes
Setting time about 5 hours in the fridge (overnight is best)
Ingredients 100g unsalted butter/ 17 digestive biscuits or ginger biscuits(260g)/ 1 tbsp golden syrup/ 300g Philadelphia cream cheese / 140g icing sugar(2/3 cup)/ juice of 1 lemon (You can add zest as well)/ 300ml double cream/ strawberry and raspberry sauce (optional)
Measuring terminology: tbsp=tablespoon (15ml)/ tsp=teaspoon (5ml)
1 Put the digestive biscuits into a polythene bag (ziplock bag) and crush with a rolling pin. It is better to crush the biscuits into pieces that are large enough to give it some texture rather than making it too powdery.
2 Melt the butter and golden syrup in a medium pan over low heat, add the crushed biscuits. Stir until all the biscuit crumbs are combined with the butter and golden syrup to form a paste.
3 Tip into a loose bottomed cake tin. (It is a good idea to line the base with baking paper.) Using the back of a spoon, spread out the mixture until you have a flat and even base, pressing firmly. While making the cheesecake topping, put the base into the fridge for about 1 hour to harden.
4 Mix the icing sugar and the Philadelphia cream cheese together in a big bowl, add the lemon juice and mix thoroughly. Whip the cream until it becomes stiff, then mix with the cheese, sugar and lemon juice mixture.
5 Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the biscuit crumb base and put it in the fridge. After around 2 hours remove the ring carefully and decorate with some fruit or jam. Put the cheesecake in the fridge again to set for several hours, but best overnight.
The thing that stands out about this cheesecake is using a fridge and not an oven to set this cheesecake. Without baking, there is virtually ZERO risk of failure. As long as you set the base well and the filling has completely set in the fridge, it will not fall apart at all when you serve it because the biscuit crumb holds very well with the golden syrup - it’s like glue. The cream cheese mixture is smooth, like a creamy mousse cake and the base crust is buttery and has a great texture even without oven baking. It is not only easy to make but also tasty and beautiful to look at too!
I picked berries from my garden and put them on the cheesecake with some of my raspberry jam for the photos. The cheesecake is delicious without fruit but it will be even better to decorate it with some strawberries and raspberry syrup if you give it to someone as a present.
I save the ziplock bag and reuse it every time I make the biscuit crumbs for the cheesecake. If you don’t have golden syrup, you can use 50g of brown sugar instead when you melt the butter. If you need more of an explanation about how to make stiff whipped cream for step 4 you can refer to my Eton Mess recipe.
If you add lemon zest to the cream cheese mixture, it gives a slightly chewy texture, and all the fruit on the cheesecake will have a sweet citrus flavour. If you use the zest, it would be better to use unwaxed lemons. If using waxed lemons, remove the wax coating with boiling water first. The zest is the coloured part of the skin on the outermost layer of citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons and limes. It contains natural oils so it is frequently used as an ingredient in cakes, desserts, sorbets, salads, etc. I like its sweet and sour flavours and to keep the chewy texture, I grate the lemon with a cheese grater so it is not too small.
If you want to know more about zest you can refer to the zest article by Olya.
Golden Syrup is something you may not have heard of, unless you’re into British baking. It is a frequently used ingredient when it comes to making a number of traditional British recipes. It is made from sugar, water, and lemon juice. When it’s cooked it becomes deeply caramelised, buttery, and has complex flavour notes turning it into a dark red-brown syrup. If you add golden syrup instead of sugar, It will deepen the sweetness of your dish. Below is a homemade golden syrup recipe that is very easy to make using just 3 ingredients and it keeps for several months at room temperature, making about 3 cups (570g).
Golden syrup recipe
-Makes: about 3 cups(570g)
-Ingredients: 300ml water/ 800g brown sugar/ ½ tsp citric acid (You can substitute lemon juice)
-Instructions: Place the sugar and water in a saucepan and stir to combine. Bring it to a boil, stirring regularly to prevent burning until the sugar is dissolved. Once boiling, gently stir in the lemon juice or citric acid. Reduce the heat to a very low and gentle simmer. Leave the saucepan uncovered. DO NOT STIR the syrup again. Let it simmer on a very low heat for 40-60 minutes or longer, until the sugar is a rich amber colour. Let it sit for a few minutes, then pour the hot syrup into a clean, dry glass jar and let it cool completely before closing the jar with a tight sealing lid. (refer to Kimberly Killebrew's golden syrup recipe)
You need to keep the cheesecake in the fridge. I keep my cake in the springform cake tin that I used to make it in because I don't have any other container small enough for my fridge. To put the cheesecake in for refrigeration; I remove the bottom part of the springform cake tin, place it on a big plate with the cheesecake on top and cover it with a multi-purpose silicone lid. The cheesecake must be kept in the fridge for it to be at its best.
The original cheesecake is known as Plakous, which is a primitive cheesecake known to have been made by the ancient Greeks around the 5th century BC, consisting of patties of fresh cheese pounded smooth with flour and honey and cooked on an earthenware griddle. A more modern version is ‘Sambocade’, found in ‘Forme of Cury’, a British cookbook in 1390. ‘Sambocade’ uses tofu cheese, egg whites, rose water, and elderflower as ingredients. For the ensuing five centuries, almost every subsequent English cookbook contained at least one cheesecake recipe. (source: The History of Cheesecake)
Most British people know of and love the no-bake cheesecake recipe. Many British people believe this recipe is from the UK but I had difficulty finding definitive information that the recipe originated in the UK. A lot of British children will learn this recipe at school, so it's an important part of British cooking culture. I don’t think it is a problem, anyway; the important thing is that this cheesecake is delicious. I didn’t know about no-bake cheesecakes before I moved to the UK - I had only had cheesecakes which are made by baking the base like other cakes in Korea. They are quite different in texture and taste, and now I prefer the no-bake cheesecake.
Summer holiday bonus.
We have a regular visitor who visits 3 to 4 times a year. The visitor is one of my sister-in-law’s family members. When they go on holiday, this visitor always comes to our house. So, I am lucky enough to have an unforgettable furry guest.
