I hope everyone had a magical Christmas and is ready for the last week of this year. Imagine: this Sunday it’s going to be already 2017!

In this post I have decided to share with you the first small chapter of my cheesecake book, which contains two easiest cheesecakes for you to master in no time. So if you still haven’t figured out the dessert for the New Year eve – roll up your sleeves and get ready! By the way, a whole week is a plenty of time to learn a new skill. How about learning to make cheesecakes?

Anyway, let’s get down to business, shall we?

I will start with a cheesecake which does not resemble the New York cheesecake you have probably tasted. However, this recipe is very simple and fast. As psychological studies have it, when you start learning something new, fast results act as positive stimuli for moving forward.

SAMURAI EFFICIENCY

This cheesecake comes from the land of the rising sun – Japan. It is a version without a crust, but later you will be able to experiment with this point as well. This recipe results in a more soufflé-type cheesecake. It is very tender, easy to make and enjoyable almost straight-away without a long cooling down process.

For the ingredients you need three eggs, a white chocolate bar (approx. 120g / 4.2oz.) and finally any cream cheese you happened to have (also approx. 120g / 4.2oz.). That’s it for what’s required.

You can easily substitute white chocolate for milk chocolate if you feel like it. Yet there is something about the combination: the light color of white chocolate and the lightness of this cheesecake go great together.

If you have a powerful stand-mixer at your disposal you better immediately switch on your oven to preheat, because all the preparations will take not more than 10 minutes.

First, you need to melt the chocolate. Whether you do this in a water bath or in a lazy microwave-way doesn’t really affect the end result, so pick whatever you feel comfortable with.

Then mix in your cream cheese and egg yolks. In the meantime whisk the egg whites until stiff and thereafter gently fold in the egg whites into the mixture. Ta da!

Now the mixture goes into a spring-form and into the oven. What is important, you should definitely put the form in an oven tray and add hot water (to create some sort of a hot bath inside your oven; that prevents cracking and improves the final texture).

You can pick any size spring-form you want. I did it once in my 22 cm (9 in) spring-form, the other time even in my Bundt-cake form; worked out just fine on all occasions.

As to the temperature and the length of baking there are two main approaches: a very simple one and a bit more complex.

• Either you put your cheesecake for 25 minutes at 170⁰C (338 ⁰F), or
• you first put it for 10-15 minutes at 170⁰C (338 ⁰F), then for another 10-15 minutes at 160⁰C (320 ⁰F) and finally leave it in the switched off oven for another 10-15 minutes.

The first approach (just once at 25 minutes and done) is good enough if you don’t have that much time at your disposal.

The second one, however, ensures a more solid cheesecake.

Likewise, if you want to make your cheesecake in cupcake forms better opt for the second cooking version, as then you can be sure that your cheese-cupcakes won’t break apart.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have just made your first cheesecake! Now, as mentioned earlier, you can experiment. What I did a couple of times was to make a crust first. What goes good as a crust for this type of cheesecake is coconut. If you have grated coconut, mix it with some melted butter and press onto the bottom of a form and then pour the cheese-chocolate-egg mass on this crust. Otherwise, you can use cookies, almond flour, or even just grated almonds.

Experiment! Create!

 

BANANA-NA-NA-NA

Now, let us add another ingredient and try a healthier cheesecake version. A cheesecake based on this recipe is easy and doesn’t have that many calories, so can be enjoyed without any remorse (at least you can use that excuse).

As the title implies the main ingredient is bananas and the riper the better. Even those brownish which are not appealing anymore work perfectly.

The “cheese” part is a low-fat cottage cheese. If you don’t have a low-fat version, go for a full-fat, but then you should count in a “remorse factor” if you eat a whole cheesecake in one go.

Two additional ingredients are: an egg and a little bit of flour. However, if you totally don’t have an egg you can skip it. You normally need an egg to do the thickening of your cheesecake, yet as we also add bananas they will do the job anyway.

Also for flour, you need just two table spoons of it. If you don’t feel like using ordinary flour or simply don’t have one at home, add a bit of cornstarch or almond flour, or even a bit of powdered sugar.

• Small tip: actually if you do have almonds, by all means – substitute flour for milled almonds / almond flour. That only improves the taste.

Your cottage cheese needs to be homogeneous, so you can either sieve it or use you potato stamper, or even a hand blender. Once this is done add an egg if you decided to add one. Then mix in your choice of powder (flour, cornstarch, milled almonds,…). Make your bananas into a puree and mix it in as well. We are almost done.

Now – the mixture into a form, the form into the oven, the oven on to around 180⁰C (356 ⁰F), and for about 20-25 minutes, or until you have a golden crust on your delicious cheesecake.

Cool it down, preferably gently in the open oven. However, if waiting is physically impossible just make yourself a nice cup of tea/coffee and enjoy your bananalicious cheesecake.

It was not difficult, was it? So:

a quick knowledge recap or LEARNING POINTS:

• Your cheese (any type you picked) needs to become homogeneous, so sieve it, blend it, mix it, stir it – whatever it takes to make a nice paste out of it.
• You need some sort of “thickening”. From the two recipes you learned so far, it can be eggs, or for example, bananas.
• You need about 10-15 minutes to prepare everything, about 25-30 minutes to bake and then something like 10-15 minutes to chill. Thus, if you have an hour – that’s all that separates you from indulging into the pleasure of eating a delicious home-made cheesecake.

Enjoy your tasty creations and have a splendid end of the year!

 

And if you would like to know more, learn different ways how to bake cheesecakes or how to make them without using the oven, then you are welcome to check out my book: “it can be easy”:

• at iBooks
• at Amazon (Kindle format, .mobi)
• at Sellfy (.pdf format)
• at lulu.com as a print-to-order (an actual printed book)