Homemade Cheesecake minus the expensive ingredients

Mango Cheesecake

I've always wanted to try and make a cheesecake: unfortunately all the recipes required cream cheese (which is not Amul cheese spread...I think!) and gelatin/agar agar. And then I found this recipe at a blog called divinetaste which not only substitutes cream cheese with good old dahi and paneer, but also provides the vegetarian alternative to gelatin (for those who find the thought of stewed animal bones in their cheesecake a wee bit distasteful). Unfortunately, while my neighbourhood grocery keeps gelatin, agar agar will have to be located some other time.

Without further ado, here is the recipe from DivineTaste, with the changes inflected by my lazy, novice baker self. It really does taste amazingly light and flavourful, and almost like a professional cheesecake (a couple more attempts, and I'm going to do away with the 'almost' :) ).

(I'm doing a cut-paste job from the blog-apologies!)
Ingredients:


For Crust:
160 gm (1 1/2 cups) digestive biscuits or any other fairly plain sweet biscuits, crushed  (I used Brittania Digestive)
100 gm (1/2 cup)  butter (preferably salted butter), chopped  (I used Mother Dairy butter)

For Filling:
160 gm (1 cup) fine sugar or powdered sugar
800 gm (3 cups) thick full cream Yogurt (I used two 400gm containers of Mother Dairy dahi) 
400 gm (2 cups) paneer
60 ml water
1 heaped teaspoon gelatin  (the cheesecake retains its shape after a bit of freezing, so I think next time I will up it to 2 teaspoon gelatin)

2 mangoes (1 cup), peeled, chopped and pureed  (The mangoes I used were Safeda- those big happy yellow ones with a gentle but persistant fragrance)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

For the Mango Glaze:
1 mango (1/2 cup), peeled, chopped and pureed
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lime juice

Method:

Place the yogurt in a cheesecloth lined colander over a container and allow to drain overnight to get half the quantity ( 400 gm or 1 1/2 cups) thick yogurt.

If you're in a hurry, you could also squeeze and massage the cheesecloth to dehydrate the dahi faster. It's much quicker and equally effective.

Prepare the crust:

Crush all the biscuits: you could beat it in a ziplock or use your fingers: although be warned, blisters might result from latter method.

Rub the butter well into the crushed biscuits bits in a mixing bowl and line your dish with the crumbs (maintain as thick a layer as you would like your crust to be) and refrigerate (freezer) for upwards of 15 minutes. I let mine lie till my filling was ready to be poured over it.

By the way, it helps if you have a springform pan because you cannot ease out a cheesecake like you ease out other cake, and cutting it is much harder if the sides aren't free.


Prepare the filling:

Use a food processor or your (well washed) hands to blend together the hung curd and paneer and transfer to a mixing bowl.

Dissolve your gelatin crystals into the measured amount of water and let it stand for ten minutes. Heat up some water in a saucepan, let it simmer, and after the required 10 t=minutes standing time, hold the bowl of gelatin over the simmering water, stirring constantly to melt the gelatin. Remove and let it cool to room temparature.
 
In a sauce pan, heat the mango puree over a medium flame. Do not allow this to boil.


Slowly stir in the gelatin mix into the mango puree, stirring constantly with a spoon.

Slowly add the mango mixture into the yogurt and cheese mixture, stir in the sugar and vanilla extract and beat well with a wire whisk until well blended.

Pour this mixture over the prepared crust, level with a spoon and chill in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours.

For the Mango Glaze:

Place all the ingredients for the glaze in a saucepan and cook over medium heat. When it begins to boil, reduce the flame and cook for 3 to 4 minutes more. Allow to come to room temperature and then spread the glaze over the cheesecake with a spoon. Allow the glaze to set over the cheesecake for 2 to 3 hours or more before slicing it.  Allow the cheesecake to set for an hour or so before spreading the glaze over it.

Those chocolate chips really aren't necessary: I had used them to spell out 'happy birthday', but it messes with the mango-ey taste.