No bake Mango Cheesecake


Mango Cheesecake

My grandmother was visiting us for a couple of days, and we had a great time chatting about life, spirituality and everything in between. And of-course playing cards (All grandmothers love it, don’t they?) She was also was quite impressed by my blog (Ahem!). It featured one of her specialty desserts, The Homemade Chocolate (one which caught her eye in a magazine when she was newly married.) She was quite happy about the fact that her grand-daughter who wouldn’t even want to make tea as a kid and a teen, is now suddenly (since the last two years) cooking a lot and “putting” it on a “computer” 😀

Well, having said all that it was becoming imperative that I would have to make something for her, which she has not had before. She is not very fond of eggs. Plus she has stayed in different Indian states and learnt to cook and enjoyed their cuisine. It was definitely a challenge to make such a never eaten before eggless dessert.

Meanwhile, I had recently become a member @ Chef At Large (CAL). Browsing through their website I found this no-bake cheesecake recipe by Harpreet Bedi Chadha. It sounded great and looked awesome. It was definitely shortlisted.

Another big bonus was a bag full of luscious just-ripe Alphonso mangoes from our native place in Konkan area in coastal Maharashtra delivered to our house by my dad. Now this mango cheesecake was a must do!

I tweaked Harpreet’s recipe to adjust to my springform pan, and made it one evening and chilled it overnight.

Mango cheesecake in the making

Ingredients :

  • 3 ripe Alphonso mangoes
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 250 gms malai paneer (cottage cheese)
  • 300 gms hung curd (about 650-700 gms curd)
  • 200 gms Digestive biscuits
  • 60 gms butter (Amul)
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 5 tsp Gelatin
  • 1 and 1/2 cup water

Method :

  1. Hang 700 gms curd so that the water drains. Roughly it will reduce to half the volume.Take 300 gm of such hung curd.
  2. Break digestive biscuits into a crumbly powder . Soften the butter and mix it with the crumbs to form an even paste. Then cover the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan with it and press down really hard. Refrigerate for an hour.
  3. Combine the grated hung curd and grated malai paneer. Add powdered sugar. Add 1 tsp vanilla extract and mix well to remove all clumps. Set aside.
  4. Extract the pulp from 2 Alphonso mangoes. Strain and extract a puree.
  5. Add 4 tsp gelatin in 1 cup water and keep aside. This process is called blooming.
  6. Prepare a double boiler. Essentially a large utensil to boil water and a smaller utensil which can be placed within. Heat the gelatin-water mix in this double broiler. Do not let it boil. Boiling destroys the thickening capacity of gelatin.
  7. Heat the mango puree in a separate bowl. Then add the heated gelatin with the mango pure, and take it off heat.
  8. Lightly mix the mango and gelatin mixture with the hung curd and paneer mixture, till fully incorporated.
  9. Take out the chilled biscuit pan and pour the cheesecake mix on it. Press evenly and again chill for sometime.

To make the mango glaze :

  1. Make a puree with 1 Alphonso. Put on gentle heat.
  2. Bloom 1 tsp gelatin in ½ cup water and heat over double broiler as earlier.
  3. Add to Alphonso mango puree. Mix well.
  4. Pour over cheesecake.

Chill the cheesecake again for an hour, un-mould and serve!

I had never imagined how delicious a no-bake dessert would taste. It will faintly remind you of mango shrikhand. And summer vacations spent idling away or playing all afternoon.

p.s : My granmom loved it. She had two servings. Yay!

Tips :

  1. A spring form pan is better for such desserts, where the bottom is delicate and it cannot be be upturned.

  2. For the glaze, 1/2 cup water was used for blooming 1 tsp gelatin (as opposed to 4tsp gelatin in 1 cup water for the cake  mix), as it needs to be runny to spread across the entire pan.

  3. The mangoes can be substituted with rose syrup and rose essence or even mashed papaya.

IMG_9610

36 thoughts

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  7. Your last picture where the cheesecake is so beautifully set …looks AMAZING. I need to give this a try, perhaps with agar agar. Bookmarking your page 🙂

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  8. Wow! Looks so gorgeous! Can’t resist the urge to make one today 🙂 I have a tin of mango pulp at home. Can I use that instead of fresh mango pulp? How much would I need? I also made some cream cheese based on Farrukh Shadab’s recipe (She’s a CAL member too) Will this recipe work with cream cheese instead of Paneer+curd combo (which in my opinion, is very similar in taste and texture to cream cheese, right?)

    Thanks much in advance, Rutvika 🙂

    -Chaitra (A fellow CAL member 🙂 )

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    1. Chaitra,

      You can absolutely use mango pulp. 1 mango is roughly equal to 2/4 cup of mango pulp. And again, I dont see why it wont work with cream cheese. You are right, the consistency is the same. 🙂

      Cheers !

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      1. Hi Rutvika,

        I used mango pulp instead of fresh mangoes and it turned out quite well! Thanks so much for the timely tips and guidance! 🙂

        Regards,
        Chaitra

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      1. vegetarian gelatin which got was in powdered form..so how to use that and how much of it?

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  13. Hi Rutvika!

    I am so glad to have stumbled across your blog! This is a paradise, lovely writing plus the fabulous recipes, I’m loving it so much!
    I tried this cake last yesterday and set it overnight, the quantity of the pulp mixture (pulp+curd-paneer) was for some reason too much to fit into the tin so I used a casserole for the remaining mixture. I was worried that I’d end up with excess, but it was hardly the case, my family absolutely loved it! Everyone at home is delighted with the fact that we have some more of it.
    I think the recipe is perfect this way. I am going to try it again next week with canned blue berries.

    Thanks for sharing.

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  14. Hi, am typing as the cheese cake is getting set in the fridge….the paneer i used was govardhan and had to really blend in the mixie due to the coarseness of the paneer…still i feel ther is some bit of grainyness in the texture….was urs the same?thanks for the recipe dear….

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      1. Rutvika, just loved the output…only one learning i have here…it took me much more than 700gm curd to get to that 300g hung curd :(((. I guess the water content in my curd were much higher….and u were bang on, on the taste bit…i think gelatin does wonders… Thanks so much for the lovely low cal recipe….

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      2. Madhupa yes, depending on the water in yoghurt it will change. I will add a note at the end of the recipe. And you are welcome. Thank you for writing back about the outcome. 🙂

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  17. Hi
    I’m a desi cook person. Find baking and desserts very hasslesome. Broke my inertia with your recipe and was pleased with the result.

    Thanks.

    Cheers.

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  18. Tried your recipe today & what a delightful result. Loved the substitution of typical cream cheese with the paneer & hung curd. Much healthier for sure. Thanks so much for sharing. My blog post should be up soon with a tag to yours 🙂

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