Should I try to make a healthy version or just do it the 'normal full-fat' way?
Eating a lardy cheesecake with all its creamy badness in a restaurant doesn't seem to make you feel as guilty as making one yourself - you suddenly become more conscious of the amount of cream, butter, sugar, cream cheese and other naughty ingredients inside that decadent cheesecake. And that's something that I didn't feel particularly good about giving to someone else.
So, easy decision, right? Go for a healthier version.
Well, no, it presents another problem - wouldn't a low-fat cheesecake taste a bit rubbish? There's nothing worse than a disappointing cheesecake. So, how do I find the solution to this?
Test both versions out of course! I have a mini springform cake pan, perfect for experiments of this type.
First, the low-fat version. For this, I used Quark, a type of soft cheese which has a lower fat content than cream cheese, and egg whites. For the base, I went for reduced fat digestive biscuits and a bit of sunflower oil.
(And not particularly photogenic.)
After the first timid bite or so, it did start to taste creamier than I thought it'd be. But it seemed a little too 'light'. You actually felt like you were eating a bit of lemony air. Which is not quite the desired effect of a cheesecake.
So, onwards with the second cheesecake. This time, it had cream cheese, double cream, butter, sugar, all the badness. But I had some oats in the base, and chose a light version brand of cream cheese, so a small attempt to move it away from the full fatness.
Ok, so this was definitely the cheesecake to go for but the base clearly needs sorting out. The oats have to be toasted before adding biscuit crumbs and butter to form the base. I probably should have known that it wasn't going to work properly - it was pretty much in bits when I was pressing it into the tin. But yes, in my silliness, I just assumed this would set anyway. So when it splayed oats everywhere when cutting into it, I knew that next time, I'd need to toast the oats a little longer and use a bit more butter.
Well, that didn't work at all. I went the other way and burnt the oats instead! I chucked the black mess straight into the bin and made a simple biscuit and butter base instead. The rest was pretty much the same process as the second cheesecake above, and into the fridge it went to set overnight. So all was going to plan.
Until I decided to dress it up with a strawberry topping.
I'm not entirely sure what went wrong but as I spread some fresh strawberries over the top, the cheesecake started to sag a little at the sides. Noooo...
Of course, I thought it'd be an easy error to correct and tried to use a knife to smooth it around again. Er, no. It was starting to make strawberry swirls in the cheese, which is no bad thing - unless it makes the whole thing droop down the sides in a very uncheesecake-like manner. Whoops. Despite this, I have to say, it tastes REALLY good, so here's the recipe as it stands. I probably should have put the strawberry topping on before releasing the cheesecake from the tin, as the cheesecake was quite firm when I took it out, so I thought it'd be ok. Maybe I just pressed the strawberries down too hard!
So, you could safely say that I haven't particularly solved the cheesecake dilemma. The healthy version doesn't taste amazing, but judging from the various mishaps of my cheesecake making this week, perhaps I just need to focus on getting one version right before experimenting with others...any tips are welcome!
More Hungry Jenny cakes here.
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