Ma's Tangy Lemon Cheese Cake by Nigel Shaw - 6-3-2018.
I know some of you Guys and Gals like cheese cake.
But for me the available Baked cheese cakes are a poor distant second to a Refrigerated cheese cake.
So I will now share this recipe for a refrigerated cake that has been in my family since the 70's.
It is a variation of a commercial recipe.
Tangy Lemon Cheese Cake.
Crust.
200 grams sweet biscuits (Arnott's Butter Snap, or my favourites, Paradise Cottage Cookies macadamia's).
100 grams butter (I've used Flora 'buttery' with no noticeable issues).
Optional;
1 tablespoon sugar.
½ teaspoon nutmeg.
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind.
½ cup finely chopped walnuts.
½ teaspoon cinnamon.
Filling.
200 grams sweetened condensed milk.
250 grams cream cheese (Kraft Philadelphia).
150 ml cream.
Juice of 2 squeezed lemons (*Approximately 2 Tablespoons worth*. I've tried bottled lemon juice, it does NOT work).
Optional;
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind.
To make the crust.
Smash biscuits into a coarse powder. (I note with interest you can now get White Wings Biscuit Base Mix).
Optional, see Crust ingredients above - Mix in sugar, nutmeg, lemon rind, walnuts, cinnamon.
Melt butter and mix in with crumbs.
Press mixture into dish.
Refrigerate while preparing filling.
To make the filling.
Beat together the cream cheese, condensed milk, lemon juice* and Optional rind.
* The amount of lemon juice is a personal thing, so add a little at a time until your happy with the taste*.
Beat until smooth.
Whip the cream and fold into the rest of filling mixture.
Finally pour/scrape the filling into the crust, smooth the top and refrigerate.
Setting time will vary but I generally wait until I can have a knife come out clean before serving.
That's roughly overnight.
Suggestions.
As the Philly cream cheese normally comes in a pack of two blocks,
I always double the other ingredients and make two cakes in one session.
Leaving the cream cheese out of the fridge helps it to soften and makes it far easier to blend into a smoother mix.
For the crust I use spring form pans.
I line the base with baking paper before closing the pan, then coat the inside of the ring with a smear of butter/margarine.
When the cake has set, I use a cloth soaked in hot water on the outside of the pan.
This melts the butter coating making it a lot easier to remove the pan without destroying the crust.
The freed cake should then fairly easily slide off the baking paper onto your serving plate.
As a rough idea, to make these two cost about $32 and took roughly two hours to make, including set up and clean up.
Nig.
