Yoghurt to Cheesecake

[thorngrove]

A fortnight ago I made Labneh (strained yoghurt cheese) from a big batch of yoghurt I made with a gallon of milk and my trusty slow cooker. Once drained, I dried the labneh, made walnut-sized cheeseballs with it and stuffed them in a couple of jars filled with olive oil. According to Mark and Tanya they tasted great but I ended up giving both jars away so can't comment!

The labneh gave off a lot of whey, so I decided to try to make Ricotta. Again. My previous two attempts were a dismal failure. This time I used an old sheet instead of cheesecloth to drain it in, and that did the trick; one container full of lovely bouncy fresh ricotta. Which really, I had no idea what to do with, as eating it all myself was a very very bad (if delicious) idea.

So Saturday I made Cheesecake for the first time. There was a box of cream cheese in the fridge as well as a lime and some lemons, and as citrus cheesecake is my absolute favourite it was obviously meant to be. Paul was also coming over for fighters' practice with Mark, so that was three other eager mouths to eat the heart attack on a plate.

The recipe was a bit of a mishmash of three different recipes; I only had 2/3 the amount of ricotta specified and was missing other ingredients. The end result (which I did eat this time) was excellent however - the base was crunchy, the cheesecake firm enough to cut and stay in shape, but soft enough to melt in your mouth. It tasted wonderfully creamy and mildly sweet (I don't like very sweet cheesecake) with a nice citrus tang to it that contrasted really well with the slightly fiery gingernut base. Definitely a repeatable recipe.

Though next time I might try it with my fresh labneh instead of cream cheese, and see how that goes.



Lime Cheesecake Recipe

Filling:
300gm (fresh!) ricotta
150gm cream cheese
100gm caster sugar
3 small*-medium eggs
1 Tb cornflour (cornstarch)
1 Tb lime juice
zest 1 lemon
zest 1 lime
1/2 tsp salt
Base:
10 gingernut biscuits
50 gm melted butter

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Butter, or spray with non-stick cooking spray, a 7 - 9" cake tin. Or do what I do, and use no-fuss silicon.
3. Break up the gingernut biscuits into crumbs. I use my mortar and pestle.
4. Add melted butter and mix. You don't want the base to be too wet.
5. Press the base mix onto the bottom of the cake tin and put in fridge for half an hour while you make the filling.
6. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and beat until smooth and lump-free. Use a food processor, hand mixer, Bamix (yay!) or by hand.
7. Add the ricotta and caster sugar to the mix. Beat until smooth (about 2 - 3 minutes).
8. Beat in the cornflour.
9. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for half a minute after each is added.
10. Beat in the lime juice, lime zest, lemon zest and salt.
11. Remove the base from the fridge and pour in the filling.
12. Place the tin in a large roasting pan. Pour hot water into the pan to come about halfway up the sides of the tin to make a water bath.
13. Bake for about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the top of the cheesecake is browned. The center of the cake should move lightly when the tin is shaken.
14. Remove the pan from the water bath and cool on a wire rack.
15. Cover and put in the fridge until the cheesecake is cold.

*why is it you never see recipes specifying small eggs? Because really, a lot of the time that's what you end up with.

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