Mini non-bake strawberry cheese cakes
The other day, my Mother-in-law came to me and told me about the strawberry cheesecake that her friend made in those cooking/baking classes and raved about it to me...The next thing I know, she passed me a recipe. An obvious way to get me to make some cheesecakes..lol
So a week later after our hectic photo shoot, I went to buy all the ingredients and embarked on my cheesecake making session. Now, I've made oreo cheesecakes and normal cheesecakes with McVities biscuit bases before, but never did I have fruits and jelly toppings on them. But the resulting cheesecakes turned out great! I totally love the taste of it (With support from Marky, my parents, relatives & my 3 yr old cousin who kept asking for more!) I haven't seen my MIL so I didn't get her comments but Marky mentioned that she'll prefer a thicker crust, which is quite impossible for my tiny cups as there isn't much space left for the cheese and jello. Also, the muffin cups are not the best containers for the cheesecakes as they're too soft but that is the best ones at the moment as I ran out of aluminum trays.
I'll make a big one the next time round so that I can put in more crust!
Anyway, below is the recipe for the cheesecake but I modified some parts:
Ingredients for:
Base
1) 320g digestive biscuits (I used 11 pcs)
2) 160g melted butter (I used 80g for the 11pcs)
Cheese filling (Approx. 18 cups requires 1 pack of cheese)
1) 250g or 1 pack of Philadelphia cream cheese (Only enough for 1 215mm X 40mm tray. Read below)
2) 2 1/4 tsp gelatine powder
3) 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp (70g) sugar (I reduced this to 60g)
4) 150ml of boiling water for melting gelatine and sugar
5) 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
6) 20 medium-sized strawberries (As I ran out of strawberries, I had to cut 6 strawberries into 3 parts & chopped up 3 strawberries to add into the fillings)
Jello topping
1) 3 packets of strawberry flavoured Tortally (, so I only used 1 packet)
2) 450ml of boiling water
3) 450ml of cold water (This recipe calls for too little water as compared to the instructions on the box, so I followed the box and added 250ml of boiling water & 250ml of cold water. I didnt my MIL's friend's jelly turned out too hard for my liking)
Method for:
Base
1) Crush biscuits and stir in melted butter (I did not melt the butter over direct heat, instead, the butter was put into a bowl which was placed over a pot of water).
2) Divide and press the crushed biscuit mixture into the base of the 2 trays. Chill for 15 mins or until needed.
3) Prick base with the back of a skewer before pouring in the filling. (I skipped this step)
Filling
1) Use a small heart-shaped cutter (1") to cut hearts out of strawberry halves and place on a plate lined with paper towel.
2) Place gelatine and sugar in a bowl. Pour 150ml of boiling water and stir until gelatine and sugar dissolves completely. If it does not dissolve completelly, place this bowl over a bigger bowl filled with boiling water.
3) Cream cream cheese and vanilla essence together. Add gelatine syrup gradually and cream till smooth. (You can add chopped strawberries or even black current conserve into the cheese mixture at this stage) Pour into the trays (or cups).
4) Place 20 hearts on each tray, partially submerged in cheese. Regrigerate until firm, about 2hours.
Jello topping
1) Dissolve Jello in boilling water. Add cold water and stir well.
2) Cool completely before pouring over cheese filling.
2nd Attempt
This time round, I made a whole cheesecake instead of mini ones. I bought the 215mm (Diameter) X 40mm aluminium trays from NTUC for the cakes but found that one 250g of cheese is not enough to make 2 cakes. I had to use 1 block of cheese for 1 cake instead. Luckily I bought 2 blocks of cheese. *Phew*
To make the side crusts, I increased the biscuits quantity to 1 whole pack of digestive biscuits + 4 more pieces. This time round, I added a whole lot more chopped strawberries to the cheese filling.
