No bake strawberry cheesecake
It all happened within the first few weeks of my arrival in the US. To their utter horror, my friends realized that I had no clue what M & M’s were; that I had never heard of this thing called peanut butter; and horror of horrors, I was totally ignorant about something called a cheesecake.
The fact was that I came from a middle-class Bengali household and had spent 99.999% of my life having good old home cooked Indian food. I knew all about rice and dal and fish and curries and gulab jamuns. But I’d never had Mexican or Thai food before (how on earth did I live my life without it?!), never had a burger (gasp!) nor had I … wait for it … opened a can of soda until I came to the US!! Yup, soft drinks are served in glass bottles in India, so that was a first for me! (I muffed it the first time – broke the little ring off, had to borrow quarters from a friend to get another one from the vending machine. Talk about epic fail).
Anyway, when my friends realized how woefully ignorant I was about the plethora of good food available in the US, they decided to take me under their wings. In one fell swoop I was introduced to M & M’s, peanut butter and the loveliest of them all – the cheesecake. Smooth, creamy, luscious cheesecake that I have had pretty much on every birthday, every special occasion and numerous times in between.
It’ll suffice to say that my life has never been the same again.
It’s another matter that my waistline has also never been the same again.
Oh, well.
This was my second attempt at making a cheesecake and now that I have made it both ways ( baked and not baked), I am never going to bake another cheesecake in my life!! The no bake process is so much simpler and hassle free! ( And the top will never, ever crack! 
Bonus!)
I loved the lighter texture of the cake and the orange zest just added that right amount of zing to the cream cheese. You can see the little orange bits in the pictures – don’t they look pretty? The thick crust too had just the right amount of sweetness and the addition of nutella really made it special! And that topping!! I have a thing going on for strawberries and oranges right now – I just love, love, love that combination!
See the cake? Know why I can only show you half of it? ‘Cos the other half is gone!! Slurped up and licked off the plate!
No bake strawberry cheesecake
Please go make one. You don’t know what you are missing out on!
Here is the recipe -
No bake strawberry cheesecake
Adapted from this recipe
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
Crust
18 graham crackers
1/2 cup hazelnuts
8 tbsp butter (1 stick), melted
1/4 cup nutella
pinch of salt
Filling
8 oz cream cheese ( at room temperature)
zest of 3 oranges
Juice of 1 orange
1 cup powdered sugar, divided
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
Topping
20 strawberries, chopped
juice of 2 oranges
1 cup powdered sugar
Method
1) Put all the ingredients for the crust in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles wet sand. Dump it into a greased 9″ spring form pan and pack it down with your fingers to form a smooth crust. Set aside.
2) In the bowl of a food processor, dump the cream cheese, orange zest, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and juice of 1 orange. Pulse it until it is a smooth mixture. You could also do this step using a whisk – just make sure that there are no lumps in the mixture.
3) In the bowl of a stand-in mixer add the heavy cream, vanilla and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Whip until it forms medium-hard peaks. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture, taking care not to lose the volume.
4) Pour the cream cheese mixture into the spring form pan, smooth out the top, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge overnight.
5) For the topping, mix all the ingredients in a small pot on medium heat and let it come to a gentle boil. Cook until the strawberries are almost falling apart and the juices have thickened. Let it cool completely.
6) When ready to serve, take the cake out of the spring form pan and pour the strawberry mixture on top. Enjoy!
No bake strawberry cheesecake
