Need I say, I love cheesecake? I've been browsing, reading and studying recipes for cheesecake. But every single of them make me produce bead-like sweats on my forehead. Not to mention most of them would have this highly sophisticated kitchen aid or something else of the same level. Mahirap lang po ako eh. We can't afford kitchen aid so all I have in my kitchen is a cheap-o hand mixer. Another problem is that most of the recipes use graham biscuit for the base... and we.don't.have.graham.biscuits.here.in.Spain. Insane, right?
But One day, I found a recipe that gives an option to not use kitchen aid AND no graham biscuit either. I got excited. Only that, it takes a lot of time and there's this process of waiting for certain hours, blah blah. I thought I was ready. I bought the necessary cheese - 4 boxes of 'em but then when the moment of truth came, I chickened out. Revisiting the recipe, I thought it was just too much for me. So I just forget about it and ate the toast with philadelphia cheese for 2 straight months. Or maybe it was 3.
Then came a cool mommy blogger who posted a recipe for cheesecake.... the easiest and yummiest ::just let the bad grammar go, ok? I like to ryhyme:: cheesecake next to the original New York cheesecake and cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Factory. Ok, maybe not. But this IS really, really good.
The cool mommy blogger I was talking about is Ava of Mamás Todoterreno. And if you want to see her recipe direct from her blog and have that spanish polished, go give it a try :)
Or you can continue reading for my own version of step by step to the heaven... I mean to making a no-sweat cheesecake.
Ingredients:
150g of biscuit - remember the Microwave Chocolate Cake recipe I posted? Same biscuit can be used. Or if you are lucky and there's an available graham - go ahead and use that :) Only that perhaps, there's no need for adding sugar anymore.
50g of granulated sugar for the base - you may opt to use brown sugar
150g of granulated sugar for the cheese
75g of melted butter
450g of philadelphia cheese
2 eggs
Very easy ingredients right? I know.
So moving on to the step by step
Just like before, the biscuit was crashed using the classic mortar and pestle. If you have a food processor, it'll make things easier and faster. But the good ol' way is not bad at all :). Put the crashed biscuit on an aluminum molder just like in the picture. A normal cake molder can also be used I believe.
put the 50g of sugar and then mix well then pour the melted butter and mix, mix and mix some more
Flatten the base with a spoon. Hand is good to use too. Then set aside.
Put the cheesecake in a bowl and add the sugar. Mix, mix. Notice I'm just using a spoon? I love this. Simple life. Oh, before I forget. It is important that the cheesecake is at room temperature so it'll be mixed well. Smoot and without lumps.
In separate bowl, beat the two eggs. I took a shot in action! How cool is that? Not. lol.
Pour in the beaten egg in the cheese and sugar mixture
Then mix again until everything is uniform.
Pour in the mixture on the base that we prepared before and voila, ready for the oven. Baking recipes normally ask to preheat the oven but I'm a big rebel mom, I didn't. I sometimes think it's a waste of electricity heh. So I didn't. I just turned the oven to 170ºC and popped in the cheesecake.
According to Ava, 35minutes is enough but mine was still a lot wobbly after 35minutes so I ended up waiting till 45minutes.
Here she is fresh from the oven. I let it sit for about 30minutes to cool it off then popped it in the refrigerator. It's really good when it's cold :) You can also top it with your favorite toppings like cranberry or strawberry marmalade, etc. The possibilities are endless!
I didn't cut it nicely but one bite, you close your eyes and you go uhhhmmm uhhhhmmmm.
So tell me. Is this easy or is this easy? It's E.A.S.Y. Try this, I beg you. You'll never regret it. The proof is this - hubby is not a fan of cheesecakes but then he tried this and he flipped out. Cheesecake from the restaurant as he describes it. My smile was from ear to ear. He even brought cheesecake for dessert in the office for 2 straight days now.
We love this in our house that I have done 2 cheesecakes in a span of 3 days. Crazy.
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