This is inspired by something I scrolled past on Instagram. I can’t remember where I saw it and unfortunately I didn’t save it, so by the time of this post it’s lost to me (If I come across it again, I will definitely post the link). It was a sliced cake studded with a mosaic of jellies in various shades of red. With that image imprinted in my mind, and some berries from a recent farm visit, I decided to try to make my own version of it.

Shown in the picture above, it is a non-bake cheesecake studded with jellies made from all the fruits that Megan and I have been picking, along with a few other flavours from our pantry. This crust recipe is a little on the thick side but still crumbly (the way I like it) and the filling is very soft. For the jellies, Megan and I used a combination of white currants, red currants, gooseberries, blackberries, blood orange and green apple. For the currants and gooseberries, we followed the recipe below, with a breakdown of 75g of currant/gooseberry juice with 25g of elderflower syrup. For the blackberry, blood orange, and green apple jelly, we halved the recipe. All the jellies were made a day in advance prior to making the cheesecake.

Yield: one 7″ springform pan

Ingredients:

For the jellies:

• 100g juice/ puree/ flavouring
• 12g gelatin mass

For the crust:

• 150g graham crumbs (1 – 1/4cup)
• 32g sugar (2 tbsp)
• 56g butter, melted (4 tbsp)
• 0.75g salt (1/8 tsp) [optional]

For the filling:

• 250g cream cheese (1 block) [room temperature]
• 122g icing sugar (1 cup)
• 5g vanilla extract (1 tsp)
• 225g whipping cream, whipped to stiff peaks (1 cup)

Tools Required:

• 7″ springform pan
• parchment paper
• spatula
• stand mixer with balloon whisk attachment
• food processor
• moulds for jellies

Instructions:

1. The day before, for the jellies: using a small pot, heat juice/puree along with any flavouring to slightly above 40°C/104°F. Remove from heat, add gelatin mass and stir until dissolved.
2. Pour into desired moulds and freeze until set.
3. The next day (this could also be done the day before), for the crust: line the springform pan with parchment paper.
4. Melt butter in a microwave or on a stovetop. Set aside.
5. In a stainless steel bowl, combine graham crumbs, sugar and salt. Mix thoroughly.
6. Add butter to graham-sugar mixture and stir until combined.
7. Pour mixture into prepared springform pan and pat down firmly with a ramekin to get an even layer.
8. Bake crust at 350°F for roughly 15 minutes. Allow to cool fully before filling.
9. For the filling: in a food processor, add cream cheese, icing sugar, and vanilla. Blend until smooth
10. Fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture.
11. Gently fold the frozen jellies into the cheesecake filling until well-distributed.
12. Pour filling into springform pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula.
13. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.
14. Cut, serve and enjoy!

Variations:

• We mentioned that we used various fruit juices/purees, feel free to use whatever you have on-hand
• To make the non-bake cheesecake plain, simply double the amount of filling and leave it out jellies.

FAQs, Tips, Troubleshooting:

• To ensure a clean cut when slicing the cheesecake, dip your knife in hot water first and make sure that the knife is clean each time before cutting.
• To increase the firmness of the cheesecake, heat up some gelatin mass, and mix it in with the cream cheese and icing sugar.
• For the jellies, we used a generic recipe for the recipe above, but to improve on flavour and texture for each fruit jelly, I plan to adjust the recipes in the future.
• The red fruit jellies ended up bleeding into the cheesecake, this could be prevented by increasing the amount of gelatin mass used.