Sour Cherry Cheesecake - an unconventional recipe

Two months ago I decided that summer is just around the corner and that I desperately need to get in shape. So, early start was on the agenda. I joined the gym, modified my eating habits and put a stop to my occasional and pointless shopping sprees. Who needs new clothes now anyways, when in just few months time, I’ll be 3 sizes smaller? :)

All went well at first – the scale was on a good way to become my new BFF, my leather jacket was actually starting to dance around me – all in all, I was happy.

And then me and my roommates decided to throw a party – a dinner party to be exact.

As usual, I was in charge of the dessert, and, as usual, I made everyone’s favorite recipe of mine.

This is where my hard determination went tumbling down – with just one taste, I was a goner. In one day, I took in more calories than I did in a week.

Even though there was no real harm done, and I massacred myself on Orbitrek the day later, I still feel guilty because of my indiscretion. However, I don’t want to feel guilty on my own, so I’m sharing the recipe with you.

Here you go – enjoy my cheesecake with a slight twist – forgo your diets, indulge and share your guilty thoughts with me afterwards :)

· Round cake mold/pan – approximately 20cm / 9in in diameter

· A good electric beater

· Kitchen scale

· Wooden spatula – a bigger one

· Meat hammer

As you can see from the tools you’ll be using, we’re doing it in a slightly weird way. But bear with me…I promise it’ll be fun for you.

Ingredients:

· Approximately 150g / 6oz. of Le Petit Beurre cookies

^{Le Petit Beurre are basically plain butter cookies. German version is Leibniz-Keks, and in US I think you can use plain McVities}

· Approximately 80g / 2.8 oz. of melted butter

· 2 tablespoons of sugar

You need ground cookies. In order to get them, you could use some type of grinder, or already buy them ground. But what not make it interesting?

Take the cookies and place them into a small plastic kitchen bag. Pick up the meat hammer, and, using the flat side of it, pound away. Hit as much and as hard as you can until cookies become almost flour like. Occasional chunks are permitted.

When doing this, just think on how your arm muscles are developing, and how you are burning energy which will be consumed later on … once the cake is done :)

Place the cookies into a bowl, add sugar and melted butter, and , using your hands, mix it, play with it and just mold it into something semi-compact. No need for perfection here.

Once done, distribute the mix into the cake mold and jam it into the fridge.

Ingredients:

· 500g / 17.6 oz. of fresh cottage cheese

· 250ml / 8.4 oz. of whipped cream (just not the canned version, please)

· 50g / 1.7 oz. of white chocolate

· 1.5 tablespoons of sugar

· 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

· 1 vanilla sugar

^{If you do not have it, just put another spoon of vanilla extract}

· 10g / 0.35 oz. of gelatin powder

· A bit of rum – I’ll let you decide what is right measure

Place the cheese into a large bowl, add sugar, vanilla extract and vanilla sugar. Mix it all together using the wooden spatula. If you decide to spice it up with rum, this is the time to pour it in.

Whip the cream, and slowly add it to the cheese mixture. Be careful. Mix it chunk by chunk, always using the wooden spatula and always in the same direction.

In that way you are ensuring that there is a minimum of air bubbles formed in the process. As my mom always says – air has no place in a cake. Doesn’t make much sense, but listen to her – she is an occasional genius – so she might be right about this one as well.

Melt the chocolate and mix it in – using the same technique as above.

Prepare the gelatin powder and do the same thing you did with the chocolate.

Once everything looks ready, take out the mold from the fridge and distribute the cheese fill onto the cookies.

Back to the fridge with everything.

Ingredients:

· 1 package of canned sour cherries

· Vanilla pudding dry mix

· 2 tablespoons of sugar

· 1 package of vanilla sugar ^{(or 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract if you don't have the sugar)}

Take out a few spoons of sour cherry juice from the can, mix it with vanilla pudding and leave it by the side. If you skip this step, the pudding will form little clumps, and we don’t want that –no, no, no!

Pour the rest of ingredients (juice + cherries) from the can into a pot, add sugar and vanilla and cook it slowly until it boils – stir the mix constantly.

Then add the pudding, and stir again until the mix boils again.

Now for the hard part .

You have to let the topping cool down. In order to do it properly you have to stir it all the time. Reduce the time by pouring cold water into the sink, placing the pan in it and stir for 5-10 minutes, until the whole mix cools down.

Once this is done, place the topping in the cake mold, store it back in the fridge and voila! You’re done.

Leave it there overnight and then organize a splurge fest with your friends!

Enjoy!