No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

Though I wanted to clear my drafts at the earliest, I do not want to postpone the posting of recipes which makes use of the seasonal fruits/vegetables. Strawberries are in plenty in the market and its hard to ignore those red beauties.  When  Mahabaleshwar is nearby, you can find them in heaps at the carts lined up near the market. I wanted to make best use of them during the season. My husband is happy with the milkshake. He says why bother to use them in any other way when the milkshake is heavenly. While looking for strawberry recipes, I came across the cheese cake recipe at Nandita's. And I decided it was the dessert for the New Year's eve.  I did not make much changes to her recipe except that I used some chocolate biscuit too and increased the sugar by 1/4 cup.

For the base

 

• Marie biscuit - 1 packets (24 nos)
• Chocolate biscuit - 1 pkt (I used Hide & Seek)
• Melted butter - 3 tblspn

 

For the cake

 

• Fresh Strawberries - 250 gm
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Hung curd - 1 cup
• Fresh cream - 1 cup (used Amul cream 200ml)
• Agar agar/China grass - 1 pkt (10 gm)
• Water - 4 tblspn

Method

 

I used a combination of marie biscuit and chocolate biscuits. You could use marie biscuit alone. Pulse the biscuit coarsely in the mixer along with the melted butter. Or take the biscuits in a zip lock cover and powder it coarsely with the chappathi roller.

  

Take a round tin. Line it with cling film. Make sure you leave some of the film hanging over the edge, to make it easier to lift the cake out of the tin, later. Spread the biscuit mix on the tin. The base should be firm. So press it down tight. Freeze the base for half an hour. Meanwhile prepare the cake mix.

 

 

 

Mix hung curd and cream in a bowl. To get hung curd, take almost 4 cups of fresh curd and tie it in a muslin cloth and hang it. The whey will be drained and you will be left with creamy curd.

 

 

Puree strawberry with sugar till smooth.

 Mix in the strawberry puree to the curd+cream mix. Mix well so that its uniformly blended in.

 

 

 

The agar agar I used were strands. I put them in warm water for 10 minutes. Then put that bowl in a pan of boiling water for the china grass to fully dissolve. Add the liquefied agar agar to the mix. Mix it well with a spatula. I reserved few drops of the puree and made a marble effect. But on setting, the effect was not seen, though. Leave in the refrigerator for overnight, to set.

 

 

 

Once set, take the pan and pull the cake out by lifting the cling film. You could garnish with some fresh strawberries or strawberry preserve. I served it plain

 

 

 

Notes:

 

The quantity of agar agar used  helps in the setting of the cake. I used only half a packet (5 gms) which I found was not enough. On leaving it in the fridge overnight also, the cake did not set well. Later I had to move it to the freezer to set. Then it set well. But once taken out, after sometime, it started melting like an ice cream. The full packet of agar agar would have worked well. But for that, the cake tasted well. No after taste of agar agar.