For lots of folks, no bake is where it’s at.
Quick, easy….no added heat factor in the middle of summer.
But are no bakes as good as full on cheesecakes?
We think so, ‘cept…different. We’ll have a better grasp on this as we move forward and create new and varied cheesecakes
As in all things cheesecake, we want to delve into the whole scene and find the best recipes, ones that deliver balance and depth of flavor. This takes research. Sometimes you find stuff in unexpected places.
One of those places is a book, Mother Wonderful’s Cheesecakes and Other Goodies, by Myra Chanin. Never heard of it, and we wouldn’t have found it except for those little thumbnail Amazon recommendations.
Myra Chanin is a cheesecake artist, and she brooks no nonsense, that’s for sure. She delivers her teachings with wit and New York humor, and is well worth the read!
She’s inspiring a couple sea changes in procedure, one is the traditional “covering with foil”. But we’ll get to that in another post. The book is interesting because she’s done a whole in depth chapter on how to make no bake cheesecakes, followed by another chapter with roughly 20 no bake recipes.
This, my friends, is expertise!
She holds her crusts together with melted chocolate and butter, creating a “candy shell” for the no bake batter.
Mmmmmmm.
This crust is modified from one of her nut crusts…we’re not using any nuts, instead upping the amount of vanilla wafers, and adding vanilla and a pinch of salt.
If you want to boil it down, jump to recipe card
Or, you might view the YouTube short video
Alright, let’s get to work….
EQUIPMENT
8″ two-piece Fat Daddio cheesecake pan
Bakers Joy spray
8″ parchment paper round
food processor or….
gallon ziploc bag and a rolling pin and cutting board
large mixing bowl
mixing paddle or mixing spoon or whisk
pastry blender
teflon spatula
double boiler
small offset spatula
water glass
INGREDIENTS
24 vanilla wafers
4 ounces white chocolate chips
2 table spoons butter
teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
PROCESS THE COOKIES
You can put the cookies in the gallon plastic bag, squeeze out the air, roll them on a cutting board with a big ol’ rolling pin. Takes a long time.
Or, you can put them in a food processor, put the top on, and pulse ’em up.
Your choice, we’re not judging here.
Either way, get the crumbs into a large, comfortable mixing bowl and set aside.
Before you set them aside, however, raise the bowl to your face, get your nose right over it, and do a deep inhale.
Ahhhhh….
Vanilla.
MELT THE WHITE CHOCOLATE
In the top of the double boiler, gently melt together the:
white chocolate
butter
vanilla
pinch salt
Stir with the mixing spoon/paddle or whisk until it comes together. The spoon/paddle is a good way to get it started, but then the whole thing is going to become tighter and you may need the whisk to get the butter in there.
The butter should be mostly incorporated, (don’t worry if you can’t get it all in there), and you’ll get something like silly putty.
ASSEMBLE THE CRUST
Spatula the silly putty into the crumbs and mix everything together with the spatula.
This will create some huge chunks of white chocolate coated with vanilla wafer crumbs.
Don’t worry, we’re going to bust ’em up.
With the pastry blender mash around in there until the largest chunks are about peanut size.
Pour this mixture into the pan and spread it around with the small offset spatula.
When it’s spread evenly, tamp the crumbs down with the bottom of a water glass, working all around the crust.
Voila.
SOME NOTES ABOUT THIS CRUST:
This crust is intended for the no bake Creamsicle cheesecake, which will be posted as soon as it’s ready for showtime.
And that could be awhile, believe me!
Typically we don’t tamp our crusts down with a glass, it makes them too hard. We hand-pat with the backs of the fingers instead. But for this no bake crust, pressing is needed. The first couple efforts produced a crust that really scattered under the fork.
Also, we’re upping the vanilla flavor every place we can. We want to balance the orange component, which is going to be orange curd. That has intense orange flavor, so we’re bumping up the vanilla wherever possible to even everything out. We want the orange and the vanilla to meet somewhere in the middle.
And make Creamsicle.
Meanwhile this crust can be used for any no-bake cheesecake where vanilla is an integral flavor.
Enjoy!
LINKS:
Mother Wonderful’s Cheesecakes and Other Goodies
What To Drink With What You Eat
