No-Bake Passion Fruit Chili Cheesecake #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

 

Libby Klein I'm obsessed with using chili and fruit in cheesecake. Probably because I can't tolerate spicy food, so those chilis would never work for me under normal circumstances. But once combined with the cream cheese, the heat mellows and lovely fruit notes are revealed. The passion fruit gel on top gives a delightful zing that pairs nicely with the cheesecake and balances the sweetness.

I wouldn’t normally make a no bake cheesecake since I prefer the traditional baked dessert, but I wanted to give you the recipe Poppy used during the Restaurant Weeks are Murder competition. It was a Chopped-style mystery basket competition for local Cape May chefs to win their restaurant on the cover of the South Jersey Dining Guide. This no bake version uses gelatin instead of eggs. Mini spring form pans enable the cheesecake to set up quickly. You could make one big 8 or 9-inch cheesecake if you’d rather. You would just need to let it chill for several hours to be firm enough to cut.

Use rubber or latex kitchen gloves when cutting chili peppers – remove gloves and don’t touch anything the gloves have touched when you’re finished.

No-Bake Passion Fruit Chili Cheesecake

Ingredients

Cheesecake Filling

1 envelope Knox plain gelatin

3 Tablespoons cold water

¾ cup frozen passion fruit pulp, thawed (you could also use fresh passion fruits, pulped, and strained.)

*1-2 chili peppers

1 can dulce de leche (or sweetened condensed milk - about 1 ¼ cups)

16 oz cream cheese, softened

Almond meal – a few tablespoons to dust the bottom of the spring form pans. You could also make yourself a crust if you want, but Poppy just made the cheesecake without a cookie bottom.

Rubber kitchen gloves

*I used red serrano chilis for a gentle heat. If you want more of a bite you can use habaneros.

 

Passion Fruit Jelly for the top:

1 envelope Knox plain gelatin

3 Tablespoons cold water

4 oz passion fruit juice

¼ cup sugar

Instructions

1. Put on your rubber gloves. Seed and chop your chilis. Don’t touch anything. Don’t rub your eye or scratch your face. When your chilis are chopped very small, add them to your passion fruit juice. Clean up the area and equipment you used and throw away your gloves.

2. Mix the gelatin with the water and let it bloom. Then, microwave the gelatin for 20 -30 seconds so it melts. Add it to the passion fruit juice and peppers.

3. In a mixing bowl, whip your softened cream cheese until it’s smooth. Doing this now will help the finished batter not be lumpy. When the cheese is fluffy and smooth, add the dulce de leche (or sweetened condensed milk.) At the lowest speed, beat for 1 to 1.5 minutes until the mixture is well-blended. Add in the passion fruit juice, fold or beat at the lowest speed until the mixture is incorporated.

4. Sprinkle the bottom of your spring form pan/s with almond meal. Enough to cover the bottom and make releasing the cheesecake easier.

5. Pour the cream cheese mixture on top. Smooth out the surface because what it looks like now is what it’s going to look like later. It isn’t going to move. Refrigerate until set. 3o minutes for minis. Several hours for a large cheesecake.

B. Passion Fruit Jelly for the top:

1. Mix the gelatin with the water and let it bloom. Then, microwave the gelatin for 20 -30 seconds so it melts. Add in 1/4 cup of sugar and microwave another 40-60 seconds to melt. Keep your eye on it so it doesn’t boil over. Using oven mits or a towel, remove bowl from microwave. Add the 4oz passion fruit juice that you thawed and set aside.

2. When this mixture is nice a cool, it doesn’t have to be cold - but it can’t be warm- and the cheesecake is cold, gently pour the passion fruit liquid on top of the cheesecakes. Chill for another 2 – 4 hours.

3. When you’re ready to serve, use a butter knife to gently go around the inside of the spring form pan to help release the cheesecake from the liner. The cheesecake should come off the bottom easily because of the almond meal.

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her 
classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

Peach Almond No-Bake Sort-of Cheesecake

It started with the peaches—perfect tree-ripened globes of glowing red shading into yellow. I was running through the market getting a few essentials but the peaches stopped me in my tracks and I grabbed up a few and brought them home. (My humble apologies to all the vendors of local farmers markets, which I adore, but I have a deadline to meet and my husband is having cataract surgery and I’m leaving the country next week, so I’m just a wee bit short of time to make a side trip for local foods.)

So what do I do with the peaches? I scour my fridge and come up with leftover ingredients of a lot of prior dishes—none of which is enough for an entire new dish. But! I can combine them! So, I had cookies left over from an earlier cheesecake crust, and a bit of almond paste, and a package of cream cheese (and as always, plenty of butter and sugar). Surely I can put these together somehow?

Then I had a brainstorm! During the last few weeks, where I live (and in a lot of other places) it’s been hot and humid. Why not make a no-bake cheesecake? Many of the crusts can go either way—if you want it to hold together, just chill it for a while before filling it. The filling doesn’t need cooking anyway, if you’re not using eggs

Many of us at MLK have offered variations of peach dishes—I’ve got a cheesecake recipe lurking somewhere on the list. But I wanted something heavier on the peaches and lighter on the filling—a sort of tart with a creamy base under the sliced fruit. And a flavorful crust holding the whole thing together. And this is what I ended up with! (It’s actually cobbled together from four different recipes.)

Fresh Peach and Almond No-Bake Cheesecake

Crust:

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups cookie crumbs (use graham cracker crumbs if you like, but others will work)
5 Tblsp butter, melted
1/2 cup coarse almond flour
1/2 tsp almond extract
a stub of leftover almond paste (optional)

Instructions:

If you start with whole cookies, beat them into crumbs. Or break them into large pieces and stick them in your food processor and pulse.

Add the other ingredients and continue to pulse until they’re all mixed and form coarse crumbs.

Press into a springform pan (this is an eight-inch one), pressing partway up the sides. If you’re going the no-bake route, chill for one hour or more. If you prefer to bake your crust, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 8 minutes. Let cool before filling.

Filling:

2-3 fresh ripe peaches (depending on size)
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
8 oz. cream cheese (I was a little short, so I made up the difference with crème fraiche. You could also use sour cream or yogurt.)
2 tsp almond extract

Peel the peaches and slice.

Blend together the other ingredients in a stand mixer until smooth. Pour into the pan over the crust.

Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Before serving, arrange the peach slices on top. (One recipe suggested slicing the cheesecake part before you add the peaches, so when you cut it into serving slices you don’t moosh the whole thing into a mess. Either way, make sure you use a sharp knife.) Sprinkle with sugar or add a dollop of whipped cream, if you feel the need.

Note: The cheesecake part will not be very thick, but your goal is to show off the beautiful peaches.

And I'm still between books! Just polishing up the draft of the next Orchard Mystery (coming in November, if it ever gets a name) and doing a final tidying up on the next County Cork Mystery (The Lost Traveller). Then on to writing a holiday short involving an Irish dragon. And I'm leaving for Ireland on Monday! There will be pictures!

My 5 Kitchen Disasters -- and Recoveries (with recipes) by Cleo Coyle

"Only God gets things right 

the first time." 

~ Stephen King*

* Tweeted by "Advice to Writers," 

a fun twitter follow at this address: 

https://twitter.com/AdviceToWriters

This quote leads my post today for
good reason. I'm talking about
Kitchen Disasters! (More on that below.)

But first...

------------------------

Cleo Coyle, who hasn't burned
down her kitchen (yet), is
author of The Coffeehouse
Mysteries.

My 5 Kitchen Disasters...
and Recoveries

Anyone who's spent serious time in the kitchen has had their share of gloppy rice, sunken cakes, and, (with apologies to Chef Paul Prudhomme) unintentionally blackened fish. On the other hand, if you click this link, you'll see that Chef Paul actually warns you: 

"If you don't have a commercial hood vent over your stove, this dish will set off every smoke alarm in your neighborhood!"

Which brings to mind my post from last Thanksgiving. That's where my Captain Kirk on fire photo came from, a public service message for those attempting to fry a whole turkey without, oh, say defrosting the bird...or putting the fryer a sufficient distance from flammable objects. 

You can view my post here along with "Eat, Fry, Love," the entertaining little video from Mr. Shatner and State Farm Insurance.

What's my point? Good cooking (like good writing) takes a bit of time: Writers write and re-write. Cooks cook and re-cook. 

A common piece of advice given to culinary students is to go home and practice, calling to mind an adorable scene from the equally adorable movie Julie & Julia. Do you remember it? Julia is determined to get her knife skills up to par in her French cooking class, so she goes home and chops a huge pile of onions in one afternoon. The resulting stench in the house (and sting to the eyes!) sends her husband out of the building for lunch. 

Julia's afternoon of "practice" was far from appealing, but in her cooking class the next day, she triumphed. (A classic set-up/pay-off of dramatic structure, too, thanks to the late, great writer/director Nora Ephron.)

Below are a few of my own stories of Fails that led to...well, better results. To children, we say, "try, try again," and that's the take-away today, I guess, in cooking, in writing, and in life.

~ Cleo

MY FAIL #1 
"Leftover Salsa" Pasta Primavera 

Spying a plastic container of leftover salsa one morning, I thought, "Why not give this a go?" Bad idea. Chef Gordon Ramsay would have spat this experiment of mine into his napkin. My lesson: never use leftover chopped tomatoes for anything but sauce!

RECOVERY 

A Healthier Shrimp Scampi Pasta

This is my my version of Shrimp Scampi, which swaps out the typical 1/2 cup of butter for olive oil with a touch of butter and places it over pasta. I'd like to think Gordon would ask for seconds...

To download my recipe PDF, click here.

--------------------------------------

MY FAIL #2 
Zero Fat Muffins 

Behold my "zero fat" muffin. No butter, no oil--even the milk was skim. Pretty to look at, but this thing was low fat to the point of inedible. Hey, willpower's one thing, but ten minutes after eating this muffin, you'd be tearing into a pan of brownies, just to get the flavor and texture out of your mouth! Major fail.

RECOVERY 
Oatmeal Cookie Muffins

A tasty little muffin laced with the flavors of an oatmeal cookie. It has the goodness of oats in it and is also low in fat, using canola oil and low fat buttermilk instead of butter. It does have sugar and I wouldn't recommend eating six in one sitting, but it's a useful alternative to a lot of high-fat recipes or fast food muffins.

For my Oatmeal Cookie Muffin recipe, click here.

--------------------------------------

MY FAIL #3 

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Oh, geez, don't ask. I have the photo because I was hoping it would work out. But it was such a major fail, I threw it out! (Never firmed up for cutting and the flavor was awful.)

RECOVERY 
Microwave Fudge

Yes, you really can make fudge using just your microwave. It's smooth and tasty and (IMO) nice enough to serve to guests or give as a gift.

For my Microwave Fudge
recipe, click here.

-------------------------------------- 

My FAIL #4 

Key Lime Pie 

Distracted one day, I had miscounted the number of eggs in this pie. Woops. The homemade graham cracker crust was delicious and so was the pie, after I froze it.  But serving it thawed was a total disaster. My lesson: pay attention while cooking!

RECOVERY 

No-Bake Key Lime Cheesecake Pie

Another crack at the Key Lime Pie, while actually counting the number of eggs, led to success. But the fail led me to trying the recipe Marc's mom made for him as a kid, most likely from a recipe clipped from a newspaper or cream cheese package. (I tweaked her ratios until I was happy with it, and made it an even easier recipe by using a pre-made crust.)

To download a recipe PDF for the No-Bake Lime Cheesecake Pie, click here.

--------------------------------------

#5 Not Quite a Fail, more like a... 

Not yet good enough!

Behold my latest try for my

Brooklyn Blackout Cake

Yes, I am still experimenting, trying to get that perfect balance with cake layers as chocolaty as they can be while still being strong enough to hold up to the pudding filling and frosting of the classic Blackout structure.

The experiments continue
into this week! 

When I get it just right, I'll start uploading it on my Web site. Check later in the week at www.CoffeehouseMystery.com for updates. And I'll be sure to share it with you right here at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, too, so no worries. Until next week...

Try, try again... 

(with joy!)

~ Cleo Coyle, author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries