Lemon and vanilla cheesecake
This cheesecake is a lower-fat alternative to shop-bought as it uses quarg and ricotta instead of full-fat cream cheese.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 150°C.
Combine the biscuit crumbs and butter in a bowl and mix together. Press the mixture into the bottom of your pan and set aside.
Mix the ricotta, quarg, eggs, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl with a hand-held kitchen mixer. When well mixed, add the lemon zest and juice. Pour the mixture into your tin and place in the oven. Cook for 30-40 minutes for a large cheesecake, or 20-25 minutes for small. Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in the oven until completely cold (this stops the top cracking).
To make the topping, put the berries in a bowl and sprinkle the sugar over the top. Set aside for 30 minutes or so. The juice should run out of the berries as the sugar dissolves. Take half the berries and push through a sieve to make a smooth sauce. Or, if you’re okay with seeds, just blend for a minute or so.
To assemble, pile the whole berries on top of the cheesecake and spoon the sauce over the top.
- Recipe by:
- Niki Bezzant
First published June 2007
Recipe Information
Portions: 8
Time to make: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total cost of all ingredients: $17.17 / $2.15 per serve
Ingredients
- For the filling:
- 250g (1 tub) ricotta
- 400g (2 tubs) quarg
- 1/2 cup castor sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- zest and juice of lemon (or less to taste)
- 2 eggs
- For the base:
- 150g low-fat biscuits, crushed into crumbs (we used Vitalife digestives)
- 50g low-fat spread, melted
- For the topping:
- 300g berries, frozen or fresh
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Nutrition Information
| per serve | |
|---|---|
| Energy |
1330
kJ
(321 Cals) |
| Protein | 12.0g |
| Fat - saturated |
15.0g
6.5g |
| Carbohydrates - sugars |
35.0g
28.3g |
| Dietary Fibre | 3.0g |
| Sodium | 190mg |
| Calcium | 165mg |
| Iron | 0.8mg |
| * NS: Not specified | |
HFG Tip
Quarg is a fresh soft cheese related to yoghurt, cream cheese and cottage cheese, with the consistency of a spreadable paste. It has less butterfat than cream cheese but more than yoghurt and cottage cheese, so it's useful in desserts in the place of cream cheese.
