Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café—No-Bake Cheesecake

Earlier this week I saw a notice on Bonanza Produce’s Facebook page that they had flats of organic blueberries for $7.50.  Yeppers, 12 dry pints of blueberries for about 62 cents each.  It wasn’t shopping day, so I couldn’t justify the gas expense (about $25 right now, round trip) to get blueberries.  So the only thing to do was make grocery shopping day two days early this week.  At that price, I had to have some of those blueberries.  I ignored the fact that they were coming from Peru.

Post Office Jennie also wanted a flat, so my first trip in to Bonanza I got two flats.  After I popped them in the truck, I opened a package to see how they tasted.  I gave them a B or B+ and decided to get another flat.  These were the largest blueberries I had ever seen in my life.  And while not full of flavor, they still looked really good and there wasn’t a moldy or squished berry in all of the 24 pints.  Aaron’s more impressed by size and appearance than actual taste (no, I haven’t figured out why yet), so I knew he’d be pleased with them.  He started snacking on them as soon as he got home and wanted them in his lunch the next day.

I figured he’d also be pretty happy with a blueberry-focused dessert.  I didn’t feel like making a regular pie and didn’t have the time to invest in an official cheesecake.  I settled on a no-bake cheesecake.  The family made one from a box last week while I was out with COVID or some other form of the plague, and they didn’t even offer me a sniff.  I found the remains, just the crumbs, the next day.  I think I was a little miffed about it.

I didn’t want to use regular graham crackers for the crust—those are getting just too expensive.  The alternative was something very cheap, and I already had it in the pantry—the homemade Grape-Nuts cereal makes a very-darn-good if not perfect substitute.  So I went to look up the recipe for it.  Apparently, I never put it on the blog.  Oops.

Graham Cracker Pie Crust with Homemade Grape-Nuts

1 ¼ cups crushed homemade Grape-Nuts (recipe here)

3 tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup melted butter

Combine all ingredients and press into a 9” pie plate.  Bake at 350°F for 8 minutes. 

Next came making the cheesecake-type filling.  I never buy sweetened condensed milk.  It is also too expensive and making the substitute at home with powdered milk is so easy. 

No-Bake Cheesecake

1 can (or equivalent) sweetened condensed milk (substitute recipe here)

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese

1/3 cup lemon juice (or 4 packets True Lemon)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Blend the ingredients for the condensed milk in a blender or food processor.  Add in the cream cheese, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy.  Pour into the prepared pie crust.  Chill at least 2-3 hours.  Top with pie filling and serve.

Then I needed to make the pie filling. 

Fruit Pie and Dessert Filling

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup lemon juice 

2 cups fruit

In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter.  In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cornstarch and stir into the melted butter.  Immediately add the water and lemon juice and stir until thickened.  Stir in the fruit and continue to cook an additional 1-2 minutes. 

(Let this filling cool for an hour or two before spreading on top of the cheesecake filling.)

Note that this recipe will make about 1 pint of fruit pie filling.  To fill a pie, you will probably want to double or triple this recipe.  Also note that most commercial pie fillings, especially blueberry and cherry, have food coloring added to the liquid.

Family reviews:  I’ll give my reviews first, because I was licking spoons all along the way.  The graham cracker crust from homemade Grape-Nuts—there is never enough left over.  Yep, it tasted perfectly fine.  And it made a really good crust.  I’d say it was indistinguishable from store-bought.  The cheesecake filling using homemade sweetened condensed milk did not taste as good straight from the bowl.  After all, the substitute was made with hot water, and a cheesecake filling needs to be a lot cooler to taste right.  So I was a bit concerned about how the final product would taste.  The homemade pie filling tasted fine, but it was much paler than store-bought because it didn’t have the food coloring.  If I were making it for guests, I might add food coloring.  And I might cut back a little on the cornstarch.  The final product was a bit thick, but otherwise, everything was good.

Now for the final product reviews from all three of us who were home for dinner last night:

First off, no one even suspected there was “food-storage” anything about it.  Having fresh blueberries to use helped tremendously here. 

Aaron.  He loved it.  Everything tasted great.  He scarfed it down and definitely wanted it in his lunch the next day.

Lydia.  She scarfed hers down, too, though maybe she didn’t enjoy it as much because she has a cold. 

Update:  I made this again, using all long term food-storage items.  For the crust I used homemade Grape-Nuts and virgin (unrefined) coconut oil.  The coconut flavor came through and didn't blend so well with the cheesecake, so I will use refined coconut oil next time.  Otherwise, it worked just fine.  For the cheesecake layer, I made the sweetened condensed milk substitute using the same coconut oil and the result tasted just fine.  Then, instead of official store-bought cream cheese, I thought I could use some homemade.  And then I thought, why go to all the bother?  Why not just strain some yogurt really well?  So I did that, and it worked really well.  However, I was a little concerned that the mixture would be a little too runny without the cream cheese, so I added a tablespoon of instant Clear-Jel to firm it up a bit.  And finally, I substituted True Lemon packets for the lemon juice and that also worked well.   

Links to related posts:

Homemade Grape-Nuts

3 december 2023