An Indian Take on New York Cheesecake

I love LOVE Cheesecake!!! I mean who doesn't!!!

Cheesecake's core ingredient is cream cheese which is available in India but is super expensive. The only Indian company that makes it is Britannia and in a small tub of 150 gms. with the pricing same as the content. To make a decent size you'll have to shell out quite a bit.

I have been researching online out on how to make cream cheese at home or a replacement for it. In my quest I found many people replacing it with hung curd or labneh or Greek yogurt. I finally decided to give it a shot and it was yummy. I have been kicking myself for not making this earlier.

So enough of my ramblings and let's get to the recipe.

Picture taken by Neethu

Ingredients:

For the Base

• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• 50gm Britannia’s digestive biscuits, crushed into fine crumbs
• 1 Tbsp fine granular sugar

For the Filing

• 1 tub(400gms) Nestle/Amul/homemade yogurt 
• 150gm powdered sugar
• 1 Tbsp plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• zest of 1 lime
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 egg
• 75 ml soured cream (add a teaspoon of yogurt to cream and leave to set for a few hours)

 Preparation

•  Put the yogurt in a muslin cloth or any other porous cloth and hang it for 6-7 hours. I hung it overnight. I got around 200 gms. of hung curd.

This is what I got from 1 tub of  Amul curd

• Pre-heat oven to 180C.
• Crush the biscuits in a mixer or putting it a zip lock bag and use the rolling pin. Mix the butter, sugar and crushed biscuits. Press into the pan/dish used for baking. 
• Bake it in the oven for 10 mins till it becomes light brown (I got confused with the baking temp as I was using my mom's oven and ended up baking it a higher temp & slightly burning it. All in all it still tasted good :) )
• Place the hung curd in food processor bowl and beat it at low speed till it becomes creamy. It took around 2 minutes for me. 
• Next add the flour, sugar and salt into the bowl gradually beating it.
• Whisk in vanilla essence, lime zest and juice. 
• Add the egg and beat it.
• Finally add the sour cream and whisk it by hand. Do not beat it using the electric beater
• Pour the mixture into the baking dish containing the biscuit mixture. 
• Bake it for 10 mins. Reduce the temperature to 110C and bake it for another 25 mins.
• It will be a bit wobbly in the middle. Leave it in the oven for an hour and then chill in the fridge for a couple of hours. 

Note: Please double the ingredients to make a bigger cheesecake. I was trying it out for the first time so made a small batch. Also add more sugar if you want a sweeter cake. We found the sweetness just right. 

I have had cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory which is like to die for. This recipe sort of matches up to it. But its no replacement for a cheesecake from the factory. Sadly there isn't one in India so we have to manage with this recipe. :)

I can guarantee that this is much better than what some of the bakeries/pastry shops sell in India. They make a mousse and call it cheesecake which really irritates me. Just call a mousse a mousse and not a cheesecake!!