Chocolate no-bake cheesecake

When I made a peach cheesecake recently I wanted to make a chocolate version for my boyfriend as he doesn't eat peaches. I came across a recipe on the Kraft Philadelphia website for a no-bake chocolate cheesecake using chocolate Philadelphia, and then when I went to the supermarket the next day chocolate Philly was half price.... so I think somebody was telling me to make this recipe!
You need:
about 140g biscuits eg digestive, crushed
30g low fat spread, melted
400g Cadbury's chocolate Philadelphia
250ml creme fraiche
8g powdered gelatine (about three quarters of a sachet) dissolved in 60 ml hot water

At least, those are the ingredients from the recipe, I did end up adapting them slightly to use up what I already had in the house.

First I used my food processor to turn the biscuits into crumbs:

Mix with the melted butter and press into the bottom of a tin. I lined it with greaseproof paper which turned out to be a good move in the end.

Whisk Philadelphia and creme fraiche. I actually used fat-free fromage frais as I had some to use up, and I decided it would be similar enough - but it ended up a little runny and I wonder if this was the problem.

Dissolve the gelatine according to the instructions on the pack. The recipe said to use powdered gelatine but I had sheets; I worked out how much I thought I would need according to the quantities on the packet but as the final dish was a bit too runny, I'm wondering if I didn't use enough. Maybe it was a combination of using fromage frais instead of creme fraiche and not using enough gelatine - next time I'll follow the recipe properly!

Mix the gelatine in with the chocolate mixture, pour over the cheesecake base and leave to set

A bit on the runny side - you had to eat it with a spoon rather than a fork - but otherwise it was pretty good, and very simple to make!

As there was no baking required, I am sending this in to Maison Cupcake's Zero Baking Required Challenge, a new event which she started this month.

Secondly I am sending this to Culinary Vibes' Cook Eat Delicious Desserts blog challenge, as this month's theme is chocolate.
 

Finally I am sending this to Frugal Food Fridays hosted by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours as it ticks several boxes - the ingredients are cheap, even more so as the main ingredient was half price, and no baking means not paying for the electricity for the oven!

Peach and pistachio baked cheesecake

I am republishing this recipe so I can send it in to Cook Eat Delicious' blog event for September, where the theme is peaches. Check out the challenge for yourself!

I had some peaches that needed using up as they were getting past their best, so when I saw a gorgeous recipe for apricot cheesecake on Kit's blog i-lost in Austen, I decided I would make it and substitute peaches for apricots. Since then I've found a whole host of blogging challenges I can enter this in as well, but I promise that was pure coincidence!

So please do check out Kit's blog for her recipe and if you haven't been to her blog before, you're missing out!

She made a cake rather than biscuit base for the cheesecake, and given the cheese part is made with cottage cheese I think it might be relatively low fat - or maybe that's wishful thinking!

For the full list of ingredients please go to Kit's blog; here's the step-by-step of what I did.

Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a square loose-bottomed cake tin.

Beat 175g margarine and 150g sugar.

Add 200g flour, 1 tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt and 2 tbsp milk. Mix well.

Spread mixture into the tin and bake for about 15 mins, then leave to cool.

For the filling, beat 150g margarine with 100g sugar and 2 eggs

Kit's recipe then says to beat in 750g cottage cheese. I had two 300g tubs which I hoped would be enough, and it was.

Beat in 100g cornflour

Here's the base which has finished cooking in the oven. It looks a little uneven but that doesn't really matter.

Once it has cooled, pour the filling mixture on top.

Cut some peaches in half, peel them and remove the stone (Kit used apricots). I used four peaches which placed evenly in rows covered the whole of the cheesecake.

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. This is how it came out:

Then chop some pistachios finely

Sprinkle in the middle of each peach half.

I have to say, it tasted absolutely gorgeous! The peaches were slightly sharp and the cheesecake texture was deliciously creamy, and the cake base was a really nice change from biscuit. I think I will definitely make this again and might try some different fruit on top next time.

As I said, I made this purely because I wanted to use up some peaches, but it fits very neatly into a few blogging challenges. Firstly, the One Ingredient Challenge: the one ingredient this month is peach. This challenge is hosted by Nazima at Working London Mummy and Laura at How to Cook Good Food.

Peaches are in season, so I am sending this to Simple and In Season, hosted by Ren of Fabulicious Food.

As I bookmarked this as soon as I saw it on Kit's blog, I am also sending it to Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes and founded by Ruth of Ruth's Kitchen Experiments.

And finally I have just come across another blog challenge where the theme is cheesecake! So I am entering this in the Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by Mom's Crazy Cooking. I've just managed to squeeze this in before the challenge ends - there are so many amazing cheesecake recipes on there, I want to try them all!

I've just found one more challenge I can send this in to, hooray! Bake Fest is hosted by Foodomania and is a roundup of vegetarian baked recipes blogged in August.

I am republishing this recipe so I can send it in to Cook Eat Delicious' blog event for September, where the theme is peaches. Check out the challenge for yourself!