Been deliberating over this for a l-o-n-g time. Looks fairly easy (in fact it is; it is non bake!!!!) but the thought of the start-pause-start-pause process (due to chilling required) just did not quite motivate me. Guess I am the sort who once started a project, wants it completed quickly. But hey, chill man! Do it layer by layer, day by day, easy peasy.
Truth be told, though the active hands-on time took nothing more than 30mins, I took 3 days to make this. Instead of chilling for the recommended 4hours at every juncture, I left it to chill overnight. Why? Because, I have no time. I am out of the house fetching and picking my boys. But for the lucky few who are truly stay-home, it should not take more than a day (provided you start in the morning and serve it after dinner).
This, has all my boys' favorite things. Strawberry, cheesecake with its buttery biscuit base, and jelly!! (strawberry flavoured some more!)
So, I decided on Monday morning to make this for Son1's birthday. It was honestly a last minute, unplanned decision. Thus as you can already imagine, I rushed out to the supermarket and get the ingredients.
I made the biscuit base on Monday, the cheesecake layer on Tuesday, and completed it with the jelly on Wednesday. All done in the mornings once Son1 is out of house, and before the other boys are awake.
Verdict: no complains,... but no thumbs up either; except for Man who faithfully chomped down his slice and had seconds. Bless his heart!*smooch*.
I personally didn't quite, really, wholeheartedly, like it. It looks pretty (my photos here did not do it justice), it is nice, not overly cheesy nor overly sweet. But I am a true blue cheese cake person. I like my cheesecake alone, not with jello. Though I must say, the jelly did add a nice twist with a new flavour and texture. To those who find cheesecake nauseating, the jello does make it more palatable. And to those who are apprehensive of the soury strawberries, the jello, again, sweetens it. Overall, it is a nice cake. Easy to make and easy to eat. *wink*
Here's what you'd need:
Crust:
150gm digestive biscuits
75gm unsalted butter (melted)
Cheesecake layer:
250gm cream cheese (softened at room temperature)
3/4 tbsp gelatin powder
3/4 cup boiling water
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
About 8-12 strawberries
Jelly layer:
90gm strawberry flavoured jelly (I used Tortally, 1 box)
3/4 cup of boiling water
3/4 cup of cold water (from the fridge)
This is what I did:
To make the crust layer:
1. Line a 8" x 8" bake tray with cling wrap. Butter to grease it. (some recipe uses aluminum foil as lining but I wanted to see the layers as I assemble them...)
2. In a blender, blend the digestive biscuits till fine. The finer you blend them, the smooth your crust layer will be. I managed to get them into talcum powder texture.
3. In a bowl with the biscuit crumbs, add in the melted butter. Stir to combine them. Lay them into tray. Use a spoon to flatten them. Cover with a foil or cling wrap.
4. Chill it for at least 4 hours. (I left them in there overnight)
To make the cheesecake:
5. In a bowl with the gelatin powder, add in boiling water. Stir to dissolve the powder. Set aside to cool.
6. Whisk softened cream cheese and sugar together till light and fluffy.
7. Add in vanilla essence. Mix well to incorporate.
8. Add in cooled gelatin mixture bit by bit. Whisk as you add (The resulting mixture should be smooth like milkshake. Sieve it if it is lumpy).
9. Take out chilled biscuit base. Use a fork to poke holes on the entire base. Pour cream batter into base. Let it stand aside while you prepare the strawberries.
10. Cut strawberries into half. Snip off the top like a V. (Don't they look like red hearts now?! :)
11. To assemble, press each strawberry lightly into batter. Leave some 2cm between each berry. How you assemble depends on how you intend to slice and serve them later.
12. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours. (Again, I left them overnight)
And finally, the jelly:
13. In a bowl with jelly crystals, add boiling water. Stir continually to dissolve the crystals.
14. Add in cold water slowly. Stir continually.
15. Pour over chilled cheesecake. Cover and return it to fridge for at least 4 hours.
16. To cut, prepare a glass of warm-slightly-hot water. Dip knife into water and wipe off with each cut. Or else, your cheesecake will stick to knife and you get messy cake.
Psst psst...
* For some strange unknown reason, my cling wrap tore while I was trying to lift up the cake. I had thought it'd be fairly easy to simply lift the entire wrapper and carry the whole cake out of the tray. But not so. I had to carefully slip my hands under the cling wrap and lift up the cake. So I guess if you are making this for a casual home consumption, and not for any special occasion, baking paper or aluminum foil will be a good idea.
* To present the cake, it is important to use the warmed knife (as describe in pt 16 above) to slice the cake off the 4 corners of the tray. Slip the knife between the cake and the cling wrap, and slowly slice it along the border.
