Not Just a Man's World

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and I decided to put the jar of almond milk leftovers to good use and develop a paleo cheesecake recipe. 

Since I was making up the recipe, I tried two different recipes for the base and two different recipes for the topping.  Last week I compared the recipes for the bases.  This week I’m going to compare the two toppings.

I had blackberries and stewed apple in the freezer and hoped that these fruits would provide a natural sweetness to the topping.  Unfortunately the apples were cheap and were quite green, so they weren’t as sweet as I might have hoped.

In neither case is the topping completely dairy-free, so if you follow a dairy-free paleo diet then this won’t be ideal.  But then, if you make cheesecake without any dairy it’s not really going to be cheesecake anymore!  I used quark which is made by leaching the whey out of yoghurt.  As such I think it is better for you than cream cheese since I believe that, even in our prehistoric days, we would have consumed fermented dairy by eating the contents of the stomach of young animals, much like hyenas do.

Almost dairy-free baked cheesecake topping

Baked cheesecake - some sort of over-topping is needed for smart presentation

Ingredients:
2 apples
250g quark
150g blackberries
2 eggs

Directions:

1. Peel and core the apples.  Chop the apples in small pieces and place in a pan with a lid.  Add a splash of water, put the lid on the pan and place over a low heat for 10-15 minutes until the apples have disintegrated into a soft pulp, stirring frequently to ensure that the apples don’t burn on the bottom of the pan.
2. Put the apple puree into a sieve and press through the sieve into a bowl to create a smooth apple paste.  Leave to one side until cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 160C.
4. Put the quark in a separate bowl and beat it vigorously with a fork until it is a smooth paste. 
5. Once the apple paste is cool add this, half the blackberries and the eggs to the quark and beat vigorously until the mix is coloured by the blackberries (which will be crushed in the process).
6. Add the remaining blackberries and mix with a little more care to allow some blackberries to remain whole (or almost whole) within the mix.
7. Pour the mix over the cheesecake biscuit base and place in the oven.
8. Bake the cheesecake for approximately 50 minutes.  The topping should be lightly browned and firm if you press it with your finger but it will still give the impression of wobbling slightly if you shake the tin.
9. Leave the cheesecake to cool before turning out.  Following my experience with the base you may want to place the cooled cheesecake in the fridge in the tin and leave it for several hours until it is well-chilled before you turn it out.

This cheesecake topping was very bland.  It was difficult to believe that both toppings had been made with the same fruit since the other topping was much sweeter.  A couple of drops of stevia may have sorted the issue out, as would using sweeter dessert apples.  I have tried adding honey to the mix, but the resultant topping didn’t work at all.  I don’t recommend it. 

Despite this blandness, I found that I preferred this topping.  It had a good cheesecake consistency and complimented the base well.

The major downside with the topping was that baking it made it a bit less presentable – baking makes the topping crack.  My suggestion to fixing this would be to decorate the cheesecake as follows:

1. Thinly slice an apple.
2. Lightly grease a pan (or melt a little butter in the pan) and gently fry the apple slices over a low heat until they are soft and slightly brown.
3. Decorate the cheesecake with the caramelised apple slices and a few blackberries.

This additional topping would also address any problems of blandness.

No-bake cheesecake topping

No-bake cheesecake - very presentable, but also full of cream

Ingredients:
2 apples
250g quark
150g blackberries
200ml double cream

Directions:

1. Peel and core the apples.  Chop the apples in small pieces and place in a pan with a lid.  Add a splash of water, put the lid on the pan and place over a low heat for 10-15 minutes until the apples have disintegrated into a soft pulp, stirring frequently to ensure that the apples don’t burn on the bottom of the pan.
2. Put the apple puree into a sieve and press through the sieve into a bowl to create a smooth apple paste.  Leave to one side until cool.
3. Put the quark in a separate bowl and beat it vigorously with a fork until it is a smooth paste. 
4. Once the apple paste is cool add this and half the blackberries to the quark and beat vigorously until the mix is coloured by the blackberries (which will be crushed in the process).
5. In another bowl whip the cream until it forms firm peaks.
6. Mix together the quark and whipped cream.
7. Add the remaining blackberries and mix with a little more care to allow some blackberries to remain whole (or almost whole) within the mix.
8. Cover the cheesecake biscuit base with the topping, taking care to ensure that the topping is pushed into the corners.  You will almost certainly find you have too much topping, in which case this makes a good little pudding on its own in small ramekin dishes.
9. Place the cheesecake into the fridge and chill for 24 hours before removing from the tin and serving.

This topping works really well and I can’t fault it, but be warned that it is incredibly creamy.  If you dislike dairy or struggle to eat a lot of cream then you may find this is a bit too much.  It tastes more like a cream pudding than a cheesecake (and as such does work very well without the base as a stand-alone pudding) so if you are after something that it firmly traditional cheesecake you may prefer to go down the baked cheesecake route.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: cheesecake base
2. Paleo recipes: blackberry frozen yoghurt
3. Paleo recipes: roast duck with apple
4. Paleo kitchen experiments: chocolate mousse