No Bake Cheesecake (egg free)

I have another recipe on the blog for cheesecake, which for me is the traditional baked cheesecake Cheesecake for Dorie which I particularly love and is easy to put together but I had a gathering of the kids and grandkids and wanted something super fast that didn’t need baking but was also delicious. I decided to go with this different type of cheesecake that comes together in a snap. Sufficient to say this was a big hit and although I had leftovers (slight case of overcooking in general), these froze fabulously well and went beautifully with Shabbat morning coffee a couple of days later, So no waste there. Since I wasn’t baking it, I wasn’t going to use eggs so I fiddled about with the recipe and am very pleased and hope you will be too. Just another note, in the interest of speed, I chose to use prepared mini casings (so cute and cuts down on your work) but you can also use prepared graham cracker pie crust and make it in a bigger pan or if you wish, make your own crust (see recipe above).

So gather your ingredients and onward!

Make sure your whipping cream is well chilled so that it will whip up properly. Nothing more aggro inducing than it looking kinda limp and pathetic when you want a stiff mixture that holds its shape so no skipping this, keep the whipping cream in your fridge till ready to use and make sure it’s in the fridge at least 3 or so hours. So place the whipping cream in a bowl and whip on medium high, gradually adding the sugar.

As you can see it’s whipping up nicely. Whip till soft peaks form. Set aside. Now, sorry, but you really have to use an additional bowl since the cream cheese is too thick to whip with the whipped cream and will deflate all your hard work. So take a separate bowl and place the instant vanilla pudding (a necessity, this both thickens and stiffens the mixture to help hold its shape and adds an additional fillip of vanilla flavor)

the cream cheese and the vanilla extract all in the bowl. Using the same (dirty) beaters you whipped the cream with, beat all together till smooth. Now scoop up the cream cheese mixture and put into bowl with whipped cream.

Whip together just till smooth and combined.

Give a little taste to see if you want more sugar or vanilla although I like it with that slight tang and not too sweet. Now you can decide if you want it in a big pie or in mini crusts which are so pretty and also a bite size dessert so that even the dieters in your crowd will try one. Personally I find most people would rather pop a couple of minis and they look so elegant on a tray.

If you go with a pie, just swirl the mixture in a graham cracker crust and if you go with minis, take either a pastry bag with a star tip or a ziploc bag and cut off a corner, like so:

Et voila’!

This amount of cheesecake mixture made 48 minis. Take your bag and gently squeeze/pipe the mixture into each pastry cup. Once filled, you can either refrigerate them (I do it right in their holders) with a tented cover of plastic wrap (stick a coupla toothpicks into a few of the pies to keep the wrap off the filling) or you can freeze them until needed. This is great since they are equally good after defrosting and then you can prep this dessert and whip out when needed. Give ’em about half an hour to defrost. So let’s say you have guests for dinner, just time dessert for about half an hour before end of the meal, whisk out of freezer and let sit tight and snug in the kitchen till you’re ready. Delicious, light and you can make ahead, how nifty is that?

No Bake Cheesecake (egg free)

2 cups (500 ml) of heavy whipping cream, very well chilled (at least 3 hours)

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

21 ounces (600 grams) of plain cream cheese

4 tablespoons instant vanilla pudding powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Prepared graham cracker crust or prepared mini pie crusts

yields one graham cracker crust (9 inch) pie or 48 minis

Directions:

Place the chilled whipping cream in a bowl and start whipping on medium high, gradually adding the sugar, till soft peaks form. In a separate bowl (yes, this is necessary or you will flatten the whipped cream and your mixture will be heavy instead of light and creamy) place the cream cheese, vanilla pudding powder and vanilla extract and with the same (dirty) beaters from the whipped cream, whip together till smooth. Now add the cream cheese mixture to the whipped cream mixture and whip together briefly till combined and smooth. Take your mini casings or your graham cracker crust. Place filling in a pastry bag or ziploc bag and snip off bottom and pipe into crusts with a little swirl. When finished, refrigerate till cold. If you wish, you can freeze (either leftover minis or the whole shebang) with lightly tented plastic wrap upheld with some toothpicks till completely frozen (check after around 2 hours) and then you can cover more tightly. Let sit out about 20-30 minutes after removing from freezer before serving.