Hello there,
First blog post, I thought i’d start with something simple 🙂
Today I tried something new, I used a cheesecake mix. I have made cheesecake from scratch before( well not totally from scratch, I mean by crushing biscuits, using cream cheese etc, you know what I mean) but I had never considered using a mix before.
I used Green’s Cheesecake, ‘Velvety Topping on a Crunchy Biscuit Base’ (I can’t say ‘biscuit base’ without singing this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IfeyUGZt8nk …). However, I made it my own by making the cheese cake into a zesty lemon flavour and topped it with strawberries.
I bought the Green’s cheesecake mix from Tesco for a very decent 88p, that is £0.88. A lemon costs about 30p and I used about a third of a box of strawberries. The only other ingredients necessary to make up the cheesecake were a small amount of milk and butter. As you can see, a very low cost dessert we have here.
The cheesecake mix consists of a packet of biscuit base and a packet of the cheese bit.
Lets take a look at the cheesecake mix:
Okay so lets talk about what I did:
Zesty lemon cheesecake topped with slice strawberries with the help of Green’s
What you need:
1x Green’s cheesecake mix
75g unsalted butter
12 tbsp milk (box instructions say 235ml….I will explain below)
1 unwaxed lemon, zested (that is the grated skin) and all the juice squeezed
Strawberries
I mostly followed the instructions on the box, but a couple of small changes…
1. I made up the biscuit base as in the instructions on the box by melting 75g of unsalted butter in a pan and then stirring in the biscuit crumbs. I then pressed this into a spring form cake tin that I had lined at the bottom with some baking parchment( draw around the tin on some baking parchment and cut out). Leave this in the fridge to harden.
2. Lemon. Grate the skin of a lemon with the finest grater you have, I used a fine grater intended for Parmesan cheese. Then slice this lemon in half and then squeeze out as much juice as possible. Set the juice and zest aside.
3. Onto the cheesy bit. Put the cheese mix into a mixing bowl along with 12tbsp of milk. Now, this is a little less milk than stated on the box, however as I am adding the juice of one lemon( about 2 tbsp comes out of that) I am cutting down on the milk a little to prevent the cheese topping from being too runny. Whisk by hand or machine until the mixture is thicker and fluffier, this should take a few minutes. Then add in the lemon zest and juice and continue whisking until blended well. The mixture may not be as firm as if you hadn’t added lemon juice, but it is only the texture that is affected slightly (it will still stand) but now you have the bonus of some lemon-y tastiness!
4. If the biscuit base has hardened by now( it should have, but if not hang on in there) go ahead and spread the cheesy lemony topping on the biscuit base and set in the fridge to cool and firm. After about an hour (in this time, wash up and start slicing those strawberries!) you can decorate the cheesecake with the fruit. As you can see, I am not much of an artist with strawberries!
Although this wasn’t the tastiest cheesecake I’ve ever tasted, it is fantastic for what it is. I think using this cheesecake mix as a base is a great way to be creative and it really didn’t take long to make at all. Try out combinations of fruit, chocolate, nuts etc. Greens suggest on the back of their box a banoffee version of the cheesecake by adding a caramel layer, I think this is a great idea!
Please share any cheesecake ideas you come up with!
Happy cheesecaking 🙂
G
Ps. “I like the base, base, base, base, I like the buttery biscuit base….”
Student Foodbook 