Get that Summer Feeling with a Tropical No-bake Lemon Cheesecake!

Although I try to avoid dairy products, I had wanted to prepare a cheese cake, for quite some time, and when I finally found affordable cream cheese packages in one of our stores, I absolutely knew what I wanted to do.

Since the weather around here is quite hot, I also decided to use butter this time, instead of margarine, because our margarine becomes pretty soft at room temperature.

For the rest of the ingredients, I used our local products like coconut milk and agar-agar, and limes to give the cheese cake a fresh and light twist, which makes it perfect for the hot and humid weather we’re having around here at the time being.

The preparation of the cake was quite easy, but, if you want to prepare it yourself, you have to think about the resting time in the fridge. That’s why I prepared the cake in the afternoon for the next day.

Let’s have a look at the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 200 g Marie Cookies
• 100 g Butter*
• 400 g Cream cheese
• 200 ml Coconut milk
• 80 g Sugar
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 package (7g) Agar-Agar
• 2 Limes for cutting lime slices to decorate

Preparation:

First of all, shred the cookies to crumbs in your food processor or by placing them inside a zip-lock bag, and then squishing them with a rolling pin. I’d recommend using a food processor because it’s much faster and less exhausting.

Next, melt the butter in a small pan. When it is melted, add the cookie crumbs and mix well. Set aside, and let the mixture cool down for about 3-5 minutes.

Line a cake pan or a springform of 24 cm diameter with baking paper. Since I don’t have a springform of that size, I used my round cake pan. When using a cake pan, make sure that you leave enough baking paper overlapping the borders so that you can lift the finished cake out of the pan later.

Press the butter/cookie mixture into the springform. To press it evenly, I used the bottom of a flat drinking glass. That worked perfectly. This becomes the bottom of our cake.

Place the cake pan/springform inside your fridge while you prepare the topping.

Pour the coconut milk, lime juice and sugar into a pan. I just washed and reused the same small one that I had used for melting the butter before. Bring to a boil, add the agar-agar powder and simmer for 2-3 minutes, while constantly stirring the mixture.

You’ll see the mixture change color slightly when the agar-agar is activated.

Remove from the oven, let it cool down for 1-2 minutes while stirring once in a while.

Place the cream cheese in a bowl, add the coconut-lime juice-sugar-agar-agar mixture and mix well.

Take the cake bottom out of your fridge, pour the cream cheese mixture on top of it and even out with a spatula.

Place the cake pan bak into your refrigerator and cool for 3 hours, so that the cake can set and become solid.

Wash the limes, cut them in thin, round slices. I planned to divide my cake into 8 pieces, so I cut 8 lime slices.

Cut each of the lime slices on one side from the center to the peel, along one of the visible, white wedge skins. Twist the lime slices from the cut you just made, and place them on your cake.

Serve cold and enjoy!

*I usually try to use margarine, but in this case, I think butter is better because it’s harder than margarine at room temperature.

Do you like no-bake cheesecake or is the baked one your favorite? Which flavors do you prefer?

I’m looking forward to read from you in the comments.