Making a baked cheesecake can become really daunting here in India, especially when we don’t produce a good quality cream cheese locally. It doesn’t mean that we don’t get a good quality cream cheese at all here. There are definitely imported brands like Philadelphia, which are available at select supermarkets at exorbitantly high prices.

So when choices are little and the craving for a perfect baked cheesecake grows stronger and stronger, quest for the alternate solutions begins! Ain’t it way too melodramatic…haha. But on a serious note, this is how I started making my own mascarpone at home. Delish and luscious.

Now we talk about the inspiration. So there’s a very sweet lady out there, who started making her own soft cream/curd cheeses at home years ago. Deeba of PassionateAboutBaking.com has a wonderful blog full of so many inspirational recipes and beautiful pictures. Her love for the locally home grown produce inspired me a lot to start making my own cheese. She has this very informative post on curd cheeses.

For those who are new to quark, it’s a soft white unaged curd cheese, which is made by cultured buttermilk and full fat milk. And it does have a very lemony fresh flavor and doesn’t have any salt added to it. This is very popularly used in German baked cheesecakes.

Knowing nothing about the cheese, for starters I tried one of a recipes from PAB, which came out really really nice. I couldn’t believe that I made that luscious baked cheesecake at home. You’ve got to try this to believe this. With trying my luck on this simple yet wonderful cheese, I am all set to be experimenting more with it.

Recipe adapted from: Passionate About Baking

Ingredients

Crust
100 gm digetive biscuits
25 gm whole almonds
40 gm butter, melted {i used salted}
Filling
300 gm quark cheese {recipe follows}
2 eggs, separated
25 gm cornflour
70 gm {20gm & 50gm} castor sugar, divided
1/2 vanilla bean, scrapped
100 ml low fat cream
Roasted Balsamic Strawberries
150 gm strawberries, frozen
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Instructions

1. For the crust, whiz the almonds and digestive biscuits in the food processor to make a fine powder.
2. With food processor, running on low speed, add the butter in slow stream and process until a moist crumb forms.
3. Place a 6 inch dessert ring or a spring form cake pan on a baking sheet and press the crust mixture on the bottom of the pan and level to make a smooth surface. Bake the crust on a 200 degree Celsius oven for 5 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes.
4. For the filling, in the bowl of food processor, add quark, cream, corn flour, egg yolks, 50 gm sugar, vanilla bean and process to make a smooth batter.
5. In a bowl, beat the egg whites using an electric beater until they become frothy. Add the remaining 20 gm sugar and beat to form stiff peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.
6. Pour the cheese mixture over cooled crust and bake for 30 minutes, until golden on top. Bake at 200 degree Celsius for first 10 minutes and then at 180 degree Celsius for 20 minutes.
7. Let cheesecake cool completely inside the oven with oven door slightly open. Once cooled, let cheesecake rest in fridge for at least 2 hours.
8. For strawberries, toss all the ingredients in a glass/ceramic dish and roast at 180 degree Celsius for about 20 minutes. Let cool completely.
9. Top the cake with roasted strawberries, while serving.

Quark Cheese

Ingredients

1 liter full fat milk
200 ml low fat cream
250 ml cultured buttermilk

Instructions

1. Heat the milk in pot with lid, so that it is lukewarm in temperature.
2. Stir in the buttermilk and cream into milk. Cover the pot with lid and let rest in warm place for 10-24 hours {10 hours for summer and 24 hours for winters}. This will enable the culture process to begin.
3. Initially the milk will look grainy but eventually the curds will float over the whey.
4. At this stage, let the covered pot rest in fridge for 5-6 hours.
5. Drain the curds into a muslin/cheesecloth and tie the knot to let the whey drain through a sieve,. Keep the apparatus in fridge for 24 hours, so that all the whey gets drained out.
6. The drained quark cheese will have a consistency like sour cream and slightly tangier than sour cream.