Diced! Dessert Challenge Round 2 – White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Gelee

Diced! Dessert Challenge – Round 2

The Diced! Dessert Challenge continues…

Each participant in round 2 won their first round and is ready to battle for more.

I will post a pairing each week on Wednesday and Thursday and open the polls for voting. The polls will be open from Thursday until the following Wednesday (before the next pair posts). The winner of each matchup with the most votes will move on to the next round and the chef will produce another recipe for their new matchup. The overall winner will receive any prizes I can acquire. To date the winner will receive:

• Dodo Book for Cooks
• A beautiful Bamboo Cutting Board with a Butterfly Motif, graciously donated by competitor Lindy (The Kozy Nook)

This week’s pairing is:

Candy Bars (Maggie) vs. Jell-O and other Gelatin desserts (Jenee). Maggie beat out fruit type pies to advance and Jenee beat out Chocolate cake (which I had as the favorite – see what I know). Here’s Jenee’s second round….

While I was THRILLED to have won my first round of this competition (thanks to all of you who voted, and to my competitor for her hard work), I was not equally as thrilled to have been stuck with Jell-O…again. I mean, seriously Pat, this is torture. (Kidding.) ((Kind of.))

Luckily, I have a lovely co-blogger that I can bounce ideas off of, and her initial inclination was cheesecake. I was hesitant, because, being quite lactose intolerant, the idea of cream cheese gives me the heebie-jeebies sometimes. But, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to win again…so, cheesecake it is. I knew that cheesecake could be made with gelatin, of the no-bake variety, so it was simply finding a recipe that I could handle. And, since I watch too much Food Network, I knew that I could make a simple gelée as a topping. And with a chocolate cookie crust, boom. Recipe born.

Compared to my previous recipe, this one was a cinch to put together. Prepare the crust, put everything else in a blender, pour into said crust, and let set. The raspberry gelee took a few extra steps, but nothing we can’t handle.

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Gelee

Crust:

12-15 gluten-free chocolate cookies (such as one box of Lucy’s allergen-free chocolate cookies)

3 tablespoons of butter, melted

1 tablespoon of sugar

Filling (based on this recipe):

1 envelope (.25 oz.) of unflavored gelatin

2/3 cup of water

16 ounces of cream cheese, softened (I used Neufchatel)

2 cups white chocolate chips, melted and cooled to room temperature

1 cup lactose-free cottage cheese

3/4 cup of coconut cream (I originally used the whole can, it was a bit too much)

Gelée (from this recipe):

2 cups frozen raspberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp gelatin
¼ cup cold water

The crust is just like any cookie or crumb crust you would make. Grind the cookies into crumbs, combine with the melted butter and sugar (adjust based on the cookies you use), and press into a spring form or free-bottomed pan (mine is a smaller one so I pressed the cookie crust up the sides a little). Refrigerate until ready to use.

 On to the filling.

So, first, I’ll explain that sweetened condensed coconut milk destroys my stomach, no matter how many Lactaid pills I take, hence the substitution. I very often make my own out of coconut cream and honey, for dairy-free truffles, but I decided to skip the “condensing” step and do something a little different, subbing some cottage cheese (which Lactaid makes a lactose-free version of) and coconut cream instead. I considered subbing the cream cheese itself with the Tofutti version to make it completely lactose free (and dairy free if you use a butter substitute in the crust), but I didn’t want to sacrifice flavor and texture. You can definitely try this recipe with the Tofutti cream cheese; it might just need a little something extra to give it a nice kick of creamy yumminess.

Ok, pour the water into a small pot set over medium heat and sprinkle the gelatin over it, stirring until the gelatin completely dissolves. Set aside.

Pour everything else in a blender or food processor and let it rip. Seriously, don’t bother making a mess of bowls and splashed things on the wall with an electric mixer.

Pour into your prepared crust and let set for about 2 hours (so you have a break before you need to start your gelée).

For the gelée,sprinkle the teaspoon of gelatin over the water and set aside. In a sauté pan over medium heat, bring the raspberries and sugar to a boil, and then let simmer for about 10 minutes, until you have about a cup’s worth of juice extracted from the berries.

Using a fine mesh sieve, strain the liquid into your gelatin-water mixture, and stir until completely dissolved. (I saved the raspberry guts left over and used it like jam. Twas delicious.)

Pour the gelée over your set cheesecake, and refrigerate again to let set, about an hour.

Using a thin knife, gently separate the cake from the sides of your pan, and then remove either the spring form or push the cake up from the bottom. Serve and enjoy!

If it lasts that long, it can stay fresh in the fridge for about 5 days.