No-Bake Vanilla Cheesecake with Passionfruit

For the last night at our house in Nottingham I thought it would be nice to make a large meal we could all share and eat together. A couple of weeks before hand Pete and I made a lamb hotpot and it was love at first taste...rich, slightly sweet, melt in the mouth and just packed with flavour. One of the other housemates tried a forkful and was rather envious to say the least, the noises that he made were..to be honest..slightly disturbing! He was absolutely adamant we had to make it again as our goodbye meal, along with the homemade garlic bread that went with it perfectly. So we did! And the pudding for this meal is the recipe I am dying to share with you today :)

The same housemate has been bugging me all year for me to make a passionfruit cheesecake. He is not a big sweet eater but said he tried a version of this dessert in a restaurant long ago and the memory of it had remained with him ever since..I had promised him I would give it a good go, no pressure on recreating a favourite hey! My instructions were that it must have a plain cheesecake base, a no-bake basic filling and a passionfruit topping. So off I set trying to find something that would live up to his expectations..

Oreo Cheesecake-Pie

 Firstly, just to clear up the kind of funny name, this lovely dessert was originally called (Creamy) Oreo Pie. Apart from being made in a pie dish this was, in my opinion, in no way a pie..it was a cheesecake! A delicious refreshing no-bake cheesecake..in a pie dish. I got too many people asking/cheekily mocking about this being a 'pie' to not make a little change of name :)

Now thats over! On to the important stuff. This by FAR exceeded my expectations. I like Oreos as much as the next person but, as you might do, wondered how such a simple recipe with so few ingredients could make anything particularly noteworthy, nice maybe..but not very memorable. How wrong I was! This was definitely noteworthy, and so so easy that I will not hesitate to make it again in the future if I need a last minute impressive dessert that looks like it took hours to make :)

Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

I've had my eye on this little gem of a recipe for a crazziiilyy long time. I'd never made a cheesecake in any form (unless cheesecake stuffed cookies count :) ) and was dying to pop my cheesecake cherry. The Brown Eyed Baker is one of my favourite food blogs to get lost in with page after page of pure temptation and gorgeous recipes, so when this torte was featured for a second time, now in her Top 10 Favourite Cake list, I knew I just had to make it. Sadly I did not own the correct pan or a springform in any shape or size so simply sat pining after it for far too long. Big news...my house is a springform free zone NO LONGER! I finally went out and invested in my new love, I get irrationally excited about kitchen purchases...I hope this isn't just me and you arn't reading this thinking I'm a total weirdo

Onto the torte, its good. Reaaaalll good. A thick buttery shortbread crust with a fruity jam layer spread over the top which blends into a generous amount of smooth cream cheese filling. There's no skimping in this recipe and that's just my cuppa tea :) However it isn't as sinful as you may think, low fat cream cheese and low fat cottage cheese cut the dreaded calorie count (life's too short to think about such things, but it's always nice if that 3rd hunk of a slice is a little less guilt ridden)

Raspberry Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Cookies

That's one lengthy name huh! I think they should just be called delicious, or spectacular, or maybe more suitably 'pain in the behind cookies'...because life has a cruel sense of humour and these cookies are so scrummy but I have never before cursed at cookie dough balls so much in all my life! I'm not going to lie to you, if you are looking for a quick fix treat to quash that niggling need for something sweet, this most certainly ain't it! But what you do get for all your hard work is the love child of a deeply chocolatey cookie with a fruity creamy cheesecake, thats one sexy offspring.

Imagine the smile on unsuspecting guests faces as they take their first bite, the initial sensation is of the crisper sugar-coated cookie edges and an unexpectedly intense chocolatey rush. Then you sink into a soft, smoooooth, subtly berry tinted filling that contrasts beautifully. Truly addicting let me tell you! Oh and they are just so pretty :)

Sadly these really are the most fiddly sticky downright stubborn things to make that I have ever experienced, kinda backwards as I was expecting the Almond Tart to be the pain in the derriere not these cute innocent looking things! I learnt some tricks along the way to make the process a little less expletive-inducing and will include these in the recipe/notes below. The problem is the dough really is not made for stuffing, it's a pretty soft mix that does set up alright after a good chill but as soon as you start to roll it in your mitts it attaches itself to everything! Then try locking in a blob of liquidy filling in the middle of a squished sticky ball, its a learning curve I can tell you!