Look, Ma, No Oven!--Bittman's No-Bake Blueberry Cheesecake
I've never really been a fruit-in-my-cereal kind of guy but these past two weeks I've gone absolutely bananas about adding fresh blueberries to my Frosted Mini-Wheats (Frosted Mini-Wheats... I know, I know). Inspired by the abundance of summer berries, two desserts recently caught my eye and shot to the top of my must-make list: Mark Bittman's No-Bake Blueberry Cheesecake in the Times and Dan Barber's Cheesecake with Minted Blackberries, featured on this month's cover of Gourmet. Barber's gorgeous confection remains in my culinary bullpen, but this past Saturday night I took on the Minimalist's latest offering.
This no-bake icebox dessert relies on your refrigerator to do most of the work and is perfect for those summer evenings when turning on the oven is the last thing you want to do. It's a simple mix of cream cheese and ricotta gussied up with the zest of one lemon and some honey, sits on a graham-cracker-and-butter crust, and is topped with blueberries (or almost any fresh fruit for that matter). I'd picked up some blueberries on my regular Saturday morning stop at Sosio's in the Pike Place Market and had all of the ingredients on hand, save for the ricotta, which I had to run out to pick up at the last minute.
Bittman suggests adding some nuts to the crust (he likes pecans or walnuts)--I had hazelnuts and almonds in the freezer and went with the latter. I pulsed the graham crackers and nuts in the food processor. If I make it again (and I'm sure I will), I'd, for texture's sake, do more of a coarse crumble (as Bittman demonstrates in the recipe's accompanying video)--my crumbs were a bit too sandy. I mixed the ricotta, cream cheese, lemon zest, and honey in my stand mixer and, after tasting, added a tiny bit of sugar. Just as in the video, my crust starting shifting around a bit when I spread in the creamed cheese mix (even though it adds to the wait, I'd recommend letting the crust sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour to set) and my first piece wasn't necessarily camera ready (pictured above is slice two from Sunday). Once spread out and sprinkled with berries, cover it and set it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. While one hour may seem like a long time to wait, I recommend leaving it in overnight if you can hold out that long.
--BTP
Nike Air Force One on April 23, 2009 at 09:46 AM
Looks delicious..