The Cheesecake Thread (recipes with your top Swiss ingredients please!)

Food & Drink, Events and Entertainment
1
Hi guys,

Now that I have my Instant Pot and a springform pan I am about to enter the world of Cheesecake-making and have been reading a lot of good recipes online.

However what I would please like to see are recipes with suggestions on which are your favourite ingredients to use that we can get locally in our stores, with names and/or inks if possible.

Of particular interest will be identifying ingredients such as:

1. Biscuit

2. Cream cheese

3, Flavourings

4. Chocolate/Caramel

But anything else you think is worth mentioning. Thanks in advance!

2
I have a pretty tasty thermomix recipe that consistently produces a memorable cheesecake using all locally bio ingredients - particularly divine strawberries from our village

3
Wow, these cheesecakes look fantastic!

If I bake cheesecakes, I bake them traditionally without any devices like Thermomix or Instant Pot, just in the oven.

My ingredients choices are following:

- Digestive biscuits for a crust - either with or without chocolate - can be bought at Coop

- Philadelphia cream cheese if it's an American style cheesecake

- natural cream quark (Rahmquark) or natural half-fat quark for other styles

- dulce de leche spread - from Coop or Migros

4
Caveat: I've only made cheese cake the traditional way, in the oven. That said:

Classic (NY style baked, which is what your picture looks to be) cheesecake is made with Philadelphia cream cheese, which is available in our Coop, so I assume it is part of their standard line.

Lidl has a cream cheese of their own line, it's pretty good. I think I remember Aldi has one as well.

You can use any full fat cream cheese.

Lately I have been using a recipe that uses half ricotta and half cream cheese - I prefer this, but the texture is a tad more crumbly.

To make the crust, graham crackers are not so easy to find out my way so I use any digestive or plain type biscuit (cookie), available in any cookie aisle here. You want one that isn't sweet. If your biscuit is sweet-ish, cut down on the added sugar. If you want to do something different you can use a flavoured biscuit, chocolate or ginger or cinnamon. You can also do a crust with finely ground almonds, but you will probably need to add a little flour to bind it.

I am of the opinion that a good vanilla and fresh lemon is really all you need to a make a great basic cheese cake; I grate a vanilla bean or two directly into the mixture, grate a lemon rind.

You can also add (real) almond extract to the cheese mix.

For other flavours, I prefer to add them in as a swirl - i.e., lemon curd, fruit preserves, etc. And of course, fresh fruit as a topping.

If you want to add flavouring directly to the cheese mixture, Etter's liquor (Cherry, Strawberry, or Winter Plum, Apricot, etc.) work. 15% alcohol, and you might need to adjust consistency to account for the added liquid. But as above, I prefer to make a plain cheese cake and add a fresh fruit topping, marinading the fruit in Etter Liquor first.

I've experimented with cocoa and espresso powders to make a coffee cheesecake; I think I added too much espresso, as it was overpowering. Worth further experimentation, as a mocha cheesecake is mighty good. With both cocoa powder and espresso you might need to adjust the sugar.

I've not done a caramel cheesecake...

Good luck - I'll be interested to hear how the cheesecake comes out using the Instant Pot.

5
Thanks guys that is some great info there and much appreciated! I may try one today and hope it's not too much of a disaster.

Keep the replies and recommendations coming please!

6
When we’ve made cheesecake in the US, we did not use Philadelphia in the baked version. Have used Philadelphia in the no bake, gelatin version.

I‘m not sure what a suitable replacement is here, but in the US i‘ve used pot cheese (a dry cottage cheese), farmer cheese - a more crumbly, drier thing like ricotta but less creamy. I guess quark is the closest in taste, but it needs to be 3/4 or full fat. I think the idea is that you need the curd.

I’m with Meloncollie that that it doesn’t need much beyond lemon or vanilla. Then loads of fruit.

Good luck! Please report back.

7
Grumpy told me about the M-Budget cream cheese from Migros which I now use regularly, do you guys think it should work ok? https://produkte.migros.ch/m-budget-frischkaese-nature

8
I think it works better than Philadelphia. And it is also cheaper. You might also experiment with added Mascarpone.

Have to look on my recipe what I used for the base.

9
One of our favourites is cheesecake with Toblerone!

Doesn't require baking, relatively easy to make with popular ingredients (Digestive biscuits with butter; Philadelphia, white chocolate, heavy cream and of course Toblerone chocolate) and it has the local Swiss accent :-)

10
Well I just got all of the stuff a little late (I got caramel biscuits, M-budget cream cheese, some full cream and some dark chocolate I will melt and mix in) so not sure it will reach room temperature now by the time I make it at 5pm... lets see... it will be an interesting experiment!

11
What exactly are digestive biscuits as opposed to normal sweet biscuits?

12
"Digestive" is the name of the biscuits produced by company McVitie's.

The package says: The original wheat biscuits that don't contain artificial colours or flavours and are a source of fibre.

But they do contain sugar, palm oil and raising agents so are not "ultra" healthy.

https://www.leshop.ch/de/direct/prod...SABEgJgwvD_BwE

13
Cheesecake isn't exactly healthy...

My cheesecake question:

Once when I made a baked cheesecake, it had cracks in it and a liquid in it too which of course made the base soggy. It tasted great but didn't look appetising.

I had used the same recipe many times before and never had this problem.

Any ideas what I did wrong?

14
It should work very well as I believe it's a slightly higher fat content than Philly. Although once you have made it I may need to taste it for you to be absolutely sure.

15
I sucessfully make them even in my Slowcooker

My main ingredients are (as always Budget style, my recipes can be found on the FB Blog) :

Digestives -> HAFERLI from Migros

Cream Cheese-> own brand from Lidl or M-Bduget or Prix Garantie, they all work a treat too

my flavourings so far include:

Mocha -- made with Nescafé granules

Chocolate -- Chololate powder or melted choc

Pirate's delight -- with dessicated coconut and rum soaked raisins

Another, similar version I made with coconut and tiny cubed pineapple

Tipsy fruit:

I made one of each .... fresh apple where the tiny apple dices were soaked in Calvados and one with fresh pears , soaking liquid was Williamine.

And last but no least, my newest creation is a cheese cake with quince pieces and flavoured with a little sweet quince schnapps ( all homemade ingredients)

And there'll be more variations.

Atm, I am testing out and writing a recipe to make one which will be like banoffee pie

I decide on a whim whether I make them traditionally in the oven (usally when I am baking bread the the oven runs anyway) or in my slow cooker

16
McVitie's digestive cookies had the right sort of taste I was looking/hoping for in terms of the crust but ultimately it proved to be too dry tasting when crushed into a crust - wonder how I can correct that to make it a bit lighter

Gala semi-soft cheese also proved to be too heavy/thick as I had hoped for a lighter tasting cheesecake

Back to the drawing board but happy to hear some suggestions

17
More butter for the crust, I'd also add a couple of spoons of apple juice (my vegan times trick). Gala is too heavy. As I wrote before, I'd mix Philadelphia and séré. Not too much quark coz it's wet, but it makes things lighter (and crumbs wetter).

I love quark strudel, btw. Without apples.

18
I use a mixture of 110g of digestive biscuits, 110g of ground almonds and 110g of butter for the base.

19
Reviving this thread, as I have recently discovered Burnt Basque Cheesecake. A more rustic, lighter twist to a traditional baked Cheesecake - no crust - and super simple to make. It's now my go-to cheesecake.

There are tons of recipes scattered across t'internets, but this is the one I used - only because my metric scale was out of battery and my US measuring cups/spoons were at hand:

https://kirbiecravings.com/basque-burnt-cheesecake/

(I cut the sugar in half and added the zest of a lemon. Also grated vanilla bean rather than extract. You can substitute cornstarch for the flour if gluten is an issue.)

And an FYI, a similar yogurt cake seems to be everywhere these days. Not a cheesecake, more of a custard-ish cake, but mighty good - and many fewer calories:

https://kirbiecravings.com/3-ingredient-yogurt-cake/

(Ditto on the lemon zest and vanilla bean. Serve with compote of berries.)

20
Turkish Yogurt cake - like this has lemon it but it's fantastic.

3 tbs GF flour works as well as normal flour.