The Cheese Cake

To start with, I plan to try my hand with the No bake cheese cake. My inspiration for this has been my colleague cum friend. She has been very good in making cheese cakes and I just loved it when she shared it with me.  My immediate question for her was  " How do you make this?" and she went on to explain it to me.

In general, cakes are a  form of sweet baked desert. They normally contain a combination of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter or oil, with some varieties also requiring liquid (typically milk or water) and leavening agents (such as yeast or baking powder). Flavorful ingredients like fruit cocktails, nuts or extracts are often added, and numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients are possible. Cakes are often filled with fruit preserves or dessert sauces (like pastry cream), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated.

But Cheesecakes, despite their name, aren't really cakes at all. Cheesecakes are in fact  pies, with a filling made mostly of some form of cheese (often cream cheese or the like), and have very little to no flour added, although a flour-based crust may be used.

The no bake cheese cake has painted another picture of cakes for me. Actually it sounds weired. Because I was always under the impression that all cakes are typically a product of baking. I was surprised to note that this cheese cake does not require any baking. Its hardly an effort to make it. Here's how it goes.

For simplicity, I divide this task into 3 layers.

Setting the foundation layer of the cheese cake is very simple. It requires crushed biscuits (they should resemble bread crumbs or they can be beaten in the dry grinder coarsely)  mixed with a good amount of butter to form its base. This base is allowed to set in a refrigerator for 20-30 min approx. or until the butter looks set and hard.

The middle layer is very simple. It involves  the mixing of cheese slices with cream, dream whip and  little milk. These are beaten together in a blender for 7 to 10 min for best results. Then this mixture is made to sit on the foundation layer (which is chilled and set) in such a way that it resembles a cake.  This needs to be put back in the refrigerator for further setting. In this way 2 layers of the cheese cake are ready.

Coming to the third layer, just prepare jelly in the usual manner (any flavor of your choice- preferrebly strawberry/raspberry) and once it comes to room temperature spread it on the second layer of the cheese cake. Spread it uniformly and put the cake back into the refrigerator (the first shelf). The cheese cake is allowed to firm up for an hour or more. Once you observe that the 3 layers are distinct, you can declare that the cake is ready.

 

Please note that no sugar is required for this simple cheese cake as the dream whip only has sufficient amount of sugar in it. You can also do a few variations to this recipe for assorted tastes.One such variation is to replace the third layer with jam of the flavour of your choice.

The recipe is as follows:

Foundation Layer:

•           1 1/2 packets Marie Biscuits crushed and ground very coarsely
•            250 gms Unsalted Butter at room temperature

Second Layer:

•        3 slices cheese
•        1 bottle Cream
•        2 sachets Dream whip
•        Quarter cup milk

Third Layer:

•         Jelly Any flavour - At room temperature

Once these 3 layers are done, the cheese cake is ready to eat.