No-Bake Mango Cheesecake

Part of the problem with making desserts in HK is finding people who are brave enough to eat them. Haha… I'm joking, of course! It's only hard to find people because many Asians don't like eating "sweet stuff" and it's not that common to have big "potluck" gatherings here.

That's why I jumped at the opportunity to make desserts for my church's Alpha course. This way I'm guranteed to make at least one dessert a week for the next 10 weeks or so. This week is the first week and I decided to make mango cheesecake! It's my all-time favourite dessert to make and holds a special place in my heart. This is the dessert that got me started on my whole dessert making craze in HK. I learned how to make it when SL invited me to one of her company's social events. Thanks!

This is a no-bake cheesecake and I find it much lighter to eat than a baked one. It's more like a mousse cake in texture and I prefer it that way because it's so light I can eat more than one piece! =) The original recipe from the class is below, but I made a few minor adjustments to the one I made for Alpha. First I doubled all the ingredients to make a bigger cake. Then for the base, I used half digestive biscuits crumbs and half Oreo cookie crumbs. I also added a thin layer of mango jelly to the top of the cake in an attempt to hide the bumps. The recipe also said to use mango juice, but I can't find that anywhere in HK so I used puree instead.

Ingredients:
Base:
60g digestive biscuits crumbs
30g butter, melted

Filling:
100g cream cheese, softened at room temperature
20g sugar
130g mango puree
150g whipping cream
3.5 pcs gelatine leaves
1.5 tsp hot water

Method:

1. Melt the butter over hot water (I normally cheat and use the microwave =P).
2. Mix the melted butter and digestive biscuit crumbs together (I pour it into a plastic bag and mix it together).
3. Line a 6" cake pan with parchment paper. Place the butter/crumbs mixture into the pan and press firmly down (while keeping it away from the edges of the pan). Chill for later use.
4. Cream the cream cheese with sugar until smooth.
5. Whip the whipping cream until it is about the same stiffness as a watery milkshake.
6. Add mango puree into the whipping cream and blend well.
7. Add (6) into (4) and blend well.
8. Melt the gelatine leaves with 1.5 tsp of hot water.
9. Add the gelatine mixture into (7) and blend well.
10. Pour the cake filling into the cake pan and chill for at least an hour.