Thursday, July 19, 2007

No bake Lemon Cheesecake goes Light


The beauty of mingling with other moms at the park while my kids play alongside their peers is that I get to talk about my kids (a constant favorite topic with all moms) and other mom stuff. But my conversations often leads to food too. Why? Because I simply cannot help myself!

So the three of us were chatting while constantly keeping an eye on our kids, and our conversations lead to light desserts for these dog days of summer. Then I brought up no-bake desserts, which lead to no-bake cheesecakes, which lead to this recipe. One of the moms had mentioned this recipe from her church friend, and shared the ingredients. I quickly took note of her recipe in my head, and made this out of memory which is a very scary task since I am known to have mommy-brain!

This is what I learned. Use your favorite graham cracker crust. Dissolve lemon jello in a cup of hot water. Use 8 oz. cream cheese with a can of frozen evaporated milk and 1/2 cup sugar. Okay. That's all I can remember from the conversation. Now I'll have to come up with the rest of the ingredients (yiks!) This is the result. Thanks Rita!

8 oz. cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 c sugar
1 can evaporated milk (not the small can!)
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 oz. package lemon jello

Open the can of evaporated milk and pour into a large metal bowl. Put in freezer and wait til ice crystals appear around edges. Dissolve jello with 1 c boiling water. Cool the jello mixture. Add jello to cream cheese mixture and mix wello. Mix 1/2 c sugar with cream cheese. Remove bowl from freezer and whip the frozen evaporated milk with the other 1/2 c sugar and vanilla. Add jello and cream cheese mixture into the whipped evaporated milk. Pour into crust and chill at least 8 hours.

Note: Used 1/3 less fat Philly cream cheese and the result was very nice. Might use a little less sugar next time and tweak on the other flavored jellos too. A nice light and easy dessert for the family on a weeknight in the summer. The best part is that I didn't have to turn on the oven. YIPPEE!

8 comments:

SteamyKitchen said...

i love the light shining on the photo!

Little Corner of Mine said...

Mmmm...refreshing!

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Thanks Steamy Kitchen and Little Corner of Mine!

Anonymous said...

I always love no-bake cheesecake...coz' NO NEED TO BAKE! Buahahah! Just the only "baking" recipe for me :D
In fact I've tried making no-bake cheesecake before many year ago, and it worked!

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hi Tigerfish,
I am addicted to no-bake this summer too, and the cheesecake is really light!

wonda said...

Have you ever tried tofu cheese cake? Non-baked too and less fattening cos it contains no cheese at all!

Anonymous said...

V, will you be posting the recipe sometime? I am wondering why would the condensed milk need to be frozen? Any raw eggs in this?
Thanks in advance. :P

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hello Alice!
Yes, I love tofu cheesecake, but Hubby doesn't like tofu, so I only make that when my asian friends visit. :)

Hi Judy,
I must start calling you auntie Judy cause it's evaporated milk not condensed milk leh. Hehe! Anyway, I was told that freezing the evaporated milk helps make it fluffy. Posted the recipe for you.:)