The hot weather is back. There is nothing like the good old Frozen Strawberry Cheesecake that can create magic in such weather. I came across this recipe quite by accident recently after I bought a package of frozen strawberries and not knowing what to do with it. I was looking all over for recipes that can put my frozen fruits to good use. After I tried out the above recipe, I have no regrets.
This cheesecake is really simple to do, no baking is needed. This is an easy dessert to impress your family members or any friends coming over to your house. This is also one of my best, favorite cheesecake recipe.
My toddler son called this the “Strawberry Ice-cream cake”. Ever since he ate it a month ago, he has been asking me to make it again and again. Last night, my son refused to sleep and said he wanted to eat the “strawberry ice-cream cake” “now”. I promised to make for him today.
I have modified the recipe as usual, to make it slightly healthier for my kids. My recipe is for a small 6″ size cake tin. Please increase the portion if you want to make a bigger cake. For my recipe, I have reduced the butter portion and surprising I managed to get a non-oily crispy base. I have reduced the sugar portion, so that when you eat the cheesecake, the strawberry fruit flavor comes out naturally as if you are eating strawberry itself, not overpowered by the sugar or cheesecake. It is important that when you puree the strawberries, you retain some small chunks of strawberries, so that your cheesecake contains the strawberries’ fiber, and the cheesecake becomes chewy with the fruit. This makes the cheesecake very fruity delicious.
To do this recipe, there are simple 2 steps. First step is the biscuit base. Second step is the Cheesecake itself.
For the biscuit base, you have the option to bake it and have a hard crispy biscuit base or you can put into the freezer for at least 20 mins to firm up the biscuit base. I used the baking method below.
For the Cheesecake, the healthier way is to use Kraft Philadelphia Low Fat cream cheese. But I used normal cream cheese here. The cream cheese needs to be taken out of fridge for about 1 – 2 hours until it softens before using. The original recipe used heavy whipping cream, but I prefer using Whip Topping (that gives a fresh cream taste). But Whip Topping gets too runny and soft easily, I need to stabilize it. There are several methods to stabilize the Whip Topping, I used the gelatin method as this method does not affect the taste of the cheesecake. Alternatively, you can substitute with low fat sour cream or low fat plain yogurt, which you can skip using gelatin.
Frozen Strawberry Cheesecake Recipe (6″ cake tin)
(This recipe is modified from Serena Bakes)
(Preparation time: 20 mins)
Ingredients (Crust)
6 pieces Graham Crackers (or Biscuits)
30 gram butter (soften)
3 walnut (chopped into fine pieces) (optional)
Ingredients (Cheesecake)
250 gram Cream Cheese (soften)
35 gram Sugar
1/2 Cup Whip Topping Cream
1 cup chopped frozen strawberries (or fresh strawberries)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp gelatin + 3 tsp water
Method
To prepare the Biscuit Crust:
- Pre-heat oven to 200 oC.
- Put the Graham biscuits into the clean plastic bag. Put on the table top, use a heavy roller pin to crush the biscuits into fine pieces.
- Chopped the walnut into fine pieces. The walnut will give the crust a flavorful nutty flavor. This is optional.
- Add chopped walnut and soften butter to the crushed biscuits. Combined well.
- Then pour the mixture into the cake tin base. Pressed the biscuits mixture firmly down to the cake tin base.
- Bake for 7 mins. Take out from oven and cool down completely.
To prepare the Cheesecake:
- Cut the frozen strawberries into smaller pieces. Next put the cut frozen strawberries into a food processor to puree the strawberries but still retain some small chunks of strawberries.
- Separately, beat the soften cream cheese and sugar until creamy and smooth.
- Prepare the gelatin. Sprinkle gelatin on the water (at normal temperature) and let it stand to rest for a few seconds. Then put the gelatin water over a pot of hot water to let the gelatin melt (similar to Bain Marie method). Remove from hot water and let the gelatin liquid cool down.
- In a separate bowl, beat the whip topping until firm peaks.
- For the cream cheese mixture, add in vanilla extract, pureed strawberries and gelatin liquid. Use a spatula to combine well. Next add in the whip topping cream. Combine well.
- Pour the cream cheese mixture into the cake tin with baked biscuit base.
- Put into freezer to firm up for at least 4 hours before serving.
