No-bake lemon cheesecake with an Oreo base

Hello. Please do not adjust your set. You’re on PrymitywnaKuchnia.pl. Still. Even though that photograph above me is… rather good, unlike the usual Prymitywna Kuchnia standard 🙂 Forgive me, but this cheesecake and last weekend were so wonderful that even the photograph couldn’t come out in our usual primitive style.

Anyway. Let’s start with a few parish notices, because while Poland has been enjoying proper Tuscan weather, roughly since mid-May, you might have missed a few important things. Namely:

• the summer holidays are over! Yes, I know that’s very strange too
• the traffic seems to have moved back into the cities! Yes, I know that’s unbearable too
• Legia Warsaw still aren’t playing in the Champions League — sorry, the Europa League
• television channels still haven’t noticed Netflix exists and keep broadcasting things
• some fantastic bowls have arrived on Warsaw’s food scene, from Aroha, but I’ll write a separate post about those, because they’re so good that… basically, I hadn’t imagined they could be that good 🙂

That’s the extremely brief bulletin. I recently read about dataism, which says that the meaning of life, or even of the world, is processing information. By reading the above, you’ve just fulfilled the world’s purpose, so now you can happily devote yourselves to fulfilling your palate’s purpose. There is a reason. But a few words about that too, rather nostalgic ones, even.

I’ve been having a somewhat harder time lately, as a result of fighting for something that has become part of my purpose. Actually, a major purpose, even my professional goal. You’ve probably often heard that when something isn’t working, it’s best to drop it and start doing something more likely to succeed, something that will give you a new purpose. Yet I still believe in this little purpose of mine, so I keep trying to fight for it. Specifically, I’m fighting for my company. For a project I’ve been working on for over 3 years now, which reached a crossroads this year. In fact, I don’t yet know whether it’s a crossroads or simply a continuing road towards a precipice, but I’m trying to get it climbing again instead of heading down. Because it was climbing, because it’s a great project. More than that: over 150 000 people have already put their trust in it, and it’s a project made for people.

Hmm. I wish I could tell you how much I’ve learnt by stepping into this river. How much more I know about myself and about people. What a lesson it is to deal with people I simply cannot understand, and how helpless you feel when you don’t know some of their motives. I’m someone who tries to fight for a goal and a purpose. Reaching further is what matters to me. Meanwhile, the inertia caused by others’ ruthless disregard is terrifying. Worst of all, it’s caused by the very people who ought to care. Professional life lesson number… actually, number 6 or 7 by now. But never before this harsh. Sometimes I feel as if someone’s hitting me over the head with a blunt axe. But I won’t give in. Because I’m strong… and there are a few fantastic people around me, beyond all that sludge. They know it too.

Now do you know why it was worth it? If not, I’ll let you in on a very sweet secret, although this cheesecake isn’t that sweet. It’s perfectly lemony, but not oversweetened. The secret is that when you’re going through a harder time and suddenly, unexpectedly, feel like doing something, the result will be extraordinary. Because your motivation, and then your feelings, are stronger. And last weekend, I had just such an unexpected urge, as if from nowhere. An urge for something good and something sweet.

Much of the credit goes to my lovely parents and my wonderful daughter, who helped me a lot with the cheesecake. My parents have something rather like a farm stay at their place. With the weather global warming has given Poland this year, being in the south of Poland really did feel like being in northern Italy. That’s where I spent the weekend and where the urge struck. You should also know that finding calm in ideal surroundings gives you that strength too. The strength to forget petty people and their careless nature. It doesn’t take away your problems or the need to solve them, but it gives you strength. The strength to make a cheesecake.

And I found that strength. I also made a Pavlova that day (you can find the Pavlova recipe here), but Ninka and I made what was probably the best cheesecake I’d eaten in ages. A no-bake cheesecake, very, very high in calories, although you don’t have to eat much: simply immerse yourself in its truly outstanding flavour. A lemon cheesecake, not sweet, light in texture, perfect. Oh, you have no idea how strongly I recommend this cheesecake. Especially as it isn’t difficult. In fact, it’s fairly simple.

So it’s probably worth treating yourself to it. Even when times aren’t easy, it’s worth looking for simple solutions. Better still, finding them. Keep warm, even though the cheesecake is… chilled 🙂 Doktorki!

PS

For this cheesecake, I took inspiration from www.mojewypieki.com. Of course, I did everything differently, above all leaving out the rhubarb, which you can’t buy in good condition at this time of year. I changed the base too, and mine didn’t set as firmly as theirs, because my gelatine is more gelatine 😉 Anyway, they write about it there too, probably rather more briefly 🙂

PS 2

Anyone who doesn’t follow Prymitywna Kuchnia on Facebook (I encourage you to follow 🙂 won’t know that the Pavlova we made that same day looked beautiful too, like this:

At a glance:

Preparation time: about 50 minutes

Time in the fridge: at least 10 hours

Serves: about 8 portions

Calories: it HAS… MASCARPONE!

Ingredients for a perfectly light — don’t read that as low-calorie — intensely lemony no-bake cheesecake:

• 250 grams mascarpone (one standard tub)
• 1 tub Greek yoghurt (a smaller tub)
• 1 carton cream, 30% fat
• 1 lemon
• 3 teaspoons gelatine
• 175 grams Oreo biscuits (two of the larger packets)
• 1/3 of a block of butter
• half a glass of icing sugar

No-bake lemon cheesecake with an Oreo base:

Ninka and I made this cheesecake together, with the KitchenAid 😉 So I’ll sometimes be writing in the plural.

First, Ninka did the job I don’t particularly like: she took the Oreo biscuits apart, separating the filling from the biscuits. She put just the biscuits in a bowl. We disposed of the filling — I don’t even know how, but somebody did it 🙂 We poured cold water over the gelatine, about 1/3 of a glass, and set it aside.

We blitzed the Oreo biscuits, without their filling, into fairly fine crumbs and mixed them thoroughly with butter we’d melted earlier. We used this biscuit-and-butter mixture to line the bottom of a round cake tin. A springform tin is best, because after the mixture sets “overnight” in the fridge, it may be difficult to cut in an ordinary tin. Ideally, press the biscuits about 2 – 3 cm up the sides too. If you can’t manage that, don’t worry.

Next, we put the mascarpone and Greek yoghurt, which had been at room temperature for an hour, into our stand mixer’s bowl. You can easily use an ordinary hand mixer, the sort you use to whisk egg whites. We added the sugar and the grated zest of a lemon that had been thoroughly scalded and washed beforehand. Then we added the juice squeezed from that same lemon, whose zest was already in the bowl with the dairy ingredients. Make sure no pips get in.

We started mixing these ingredients on a medium KitchenAid setting and turned our attention to the gelatine. After soaking in water, the gelatine should become jelly-like. Transfer it to a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring all the time, until it dissolves nicely in the water without leaving any lumps. Be careful not to let it boil. Once it had dissolved, we set it aside to cool.

When the gelatine had cooled, we added two tablespoons of our mixture, which was still being mixed, and stirred until smooth. We poured this back into the rest of the cheese-and-yoghurt mixture and mixed thoroughly with the machine, this time at a slightly higher speed. You should have a smooth, even mixture.

Next, we whipped the 30% cream, about a glassful, which must be very cold. It needs to become properly thick whipped… cream. You can then add it to the cheese-and-yoghurt mixture. But don’t use the mixer now: gently fold it in with a spoon.

We transferred this lemon-flavoured cheese mixture into the tin, onto the Oreo base, and spread it out thoroughly with a spoon. We covered the tin with aluminium foil and put it in the fridge overnight. You can start tasting in the morning. Admittedly, our base didn’t hold together everywhere and crumbled a little, but as you can see in the photographs, that lets you make a nice decoration out of it 🙂

And the lemon cheesecake itself? Well, it’s delicious. Enjoy 🙂

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