In Primary School, my best friend, Sym, had mentioned eating tofu cheesecake at Sun with Moon, and since then, I had always loved it. Yeeearss later (around year 2), Beatrice, our fellow chef, told me she had tried the tofu cheesecake that I raved about before. I got really excited, that someone else loved a food I loved (& had sentimental value toward) too (If anyone else shares the same passion I have for Eggs Benedict, we must be friends). Anyway, Beatrice then, very untactfully told me that she was lying & that she was a horrible soul that did not deserve my time or effort lawl.
2 Years after that incident (now), I begin my /very unskilled/ baking journey to recreate things I love eating. The portions in Sun with Moon are extremely small and pricey, so I tasked myself to create the cheesecake so I could gorge myself with it and not feel as guilty.
Just a warning, in case you are expecting the cheesecake to turn out like Sun with Moon's recipe. It is not like the cheesecake there, but it's still really yummy and extremely easy! I recommend it!
The recipe I followed was by Cooking With Dog, a super adorable Japanese youtuber team thing. For my recipe, I was really greedy and doubled the ingredients (also because I think my cake pan is 9" and theirs was 6").
Here is my doubled amounts and modified ingredients for my 9" pan.
Cheesecake Base
250g Digestives Biscuits (I think i more than tripled this bc I like cheesecake base, but I suppose you can ratio the biscuit and butter to make a smaller amount)
100g Melted Butter
Cheesecake Filling
200g Cream cheese (less than one packet)
200g Firm Tofu
200g Yogurt
100g Whipping Cream
100g Sugar
2tbsp Lemon Juice
10g Gelatin Powder
100ml Water
Use pressed tofu
Line your cake pan if required.
1) Get Parchment Paper
2) Outline your pan and cut out the outlines
3) Cut out strips to fit around the circumference of your pan
Cutting slits will allow your strips to sit better in a circle
My sister taught me this :-) The wrapper of the butter is suuuper buttery so you can use it to cover the pan in a layer of butter. The layer of butter will help the parchment paper stick.
Get your firm tofu (I used pressed tofu, don't use like silken tofu or something) & a cheesecloth (idk what that was at the moment so I just got some dough cloth thing) Just to let you guys know cheesecloth is super different and you should use it instead of my random cloth lol.
Balance heavy things on the tofu
Get a Ziplock Bag and place the Digestives into the bag. Do not fully close the bag, its a lot easier to smash the biscuits when there is a small hole for air to escape.
Melt the butter, it should look like that after stirring, not an oily mess. The easiest way to do thing is microwaving in small intervals of 5-10 seconds and stirring. if you put it in for longer intervals the butter will just separate and be annoying.
Toss the butter into the ziploc bag and shake the bag around until the Biscuits and Butter are well incorporated
Flatten the biscuit base with something flat like a jar or a glass.
The next and easiest step is blending the Cream cheese, Tofu, Yogurt, Whipping Cream, Sugar and Lemon Juice together. (I was really stupid at this step and accidentally forgot my cream cheese. hahha. I had to ladle everything out of the pan and reblend the mixture with the cream cheese lol)
Next you need to dissolve the gelatin powder. I recommend to follow this method instead (dissolve in cold water first) of the Cooking with dog method. (I used the cooking with dog method and it didn't really retain its shape like it was supposed to)
Finally, you add the gelatin to the mixture and give the mixture a few more pulses on the blender.
The cake is almost done! You just need to tap it (firmly) a few times on the counter to release the air bubbles and then place it in the fridge for a few hours before eating it!
the chickens r curious
I smoothed out the surface of the cake with a knife so it'd be pretty
About 2 hours in the fridge, it was still a bit melty and gloopy
But after a night or so, the cake firms up (as seen in the first photo)
Thanks for reading guys! I hope you'll try the cake!
xx kellO bellO
THE VERDICT:
Kelley was being a generous child, and hence she gave a an entire slice of her tofu cheesecake! That definitely scored her some brownie points (or should I say, "cheesecake points"??) But that aside, I really enjoyed the tofu cheesecake!
At first, I must admit, I was highly skeptical about the whole "tofu cheesecake" thing, but after I tried it, I realised that everything actually went very nicely and it in fact, tasted very normal! The texture tastes slightly creamier, and it taste sort of savoury because of the tofu. The cream cheese + tofu mix very nicely together.
I also liked how the cheesecake wasn't too dense, and it was light enough so I didn't feel like crying. There was also a sort of dissolvable/melty texture to it (I apologise for my lack of baking terminology .... . .. ) It's like when you eat it, it kind of just melts and dissolves in your mouth?? Sounds gross but it was good! I believe it was like that partly because of the tofu.
So all in all, a job well done! I'm glad my first time eating tofu cheesecake was an honour given to Kelley he he he ☺
Tofu cheesecake - +8
