No-Bake Cheesecake Recipe

Today on Sugar Spun Run, I'll be showing you how to make a no-bake cheesecake. It has been really hot here recently, over 90 degrees every day, and I have not felt like turning on my oven. Fortunately, I have a great recipe for a no-bake cheesecake, and today I am going to show you how to make that. We are going to make this completely from scratch with our own simple graham cracker crust, no Cool Whip or anything like that, and trust me, you guys are going to love this no-bake cheesecake so much, it is just as good as one that you bake in the oven. So let's get started. The first thing that you'll need is a nine or 10-inch springform pan, and now we're going to make a graham cracker crust for this. This is only a few ingredients, and I recommend taking the couple minutes it takes to make it, because you're not going to be able to get away with using one of those pre-made nine-inch graham cracker crust, you know, the kind that comes in the foil pie pans. As you can see, this is much deeper than one of those, so if you do use one of those pie pans, you're going to have a lot of cheesecake left over. Now let's make that crust. We'll need to start with one and a half cups of crushed graham cracker crumbs. We will add two tablespoons of white granulated sugar, and one tablespoon of brown sugar to that, and use a fork to stir until the ingredients are well combined. Now we'll add seven tablespoons of melted butter, and mix everything together until it's all well combined. Now we'll grab our springform pan, and pour these graham cracker crumbs into that, and I like to use a measuring cup to tamp down the graham cracker crumbs into the bottom, and up the sides of your springform pan. Make sure that you press tightly, especially when pressing up the sides of the springform pan, otherwise when you go to cut into your no-bake cheesecake, the edges are just going to crumble. The graham cracker crust will firm up into a nice shell while it chills in the fridge. While that graham cracker crust is chilling, now we can make our no-bake cheesecake filling. The first thing that you'll need is 16 ounces of cream cheese. Make sure this is the brick style, and not the spread style cream cheese. We'll add these to a large bowl, and you'll want to make sure that this cream cheese is really soft. As you can see, I've let this cream cheese soften until it basically is spreadable. I've let it sit out at room temperature for about an hour or an hour and a half before I begin making the cheesecake filling. This is important because otherwise you'll likely have lumps in your cheesecake. And we'll add one cup of powdered sugar, and use an electric mixer to beat these together until well combined. Once the sugar and cream cheese are combined, we'll add two teaspoons of lemon juice, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract, and we'll stir everything together again. Now we are going to add the sour cream. This recipe calls for one third cup of sour cream. And if you ask me, this is what sets my no-bake cheesecake apart from just about every other no-bake cheesecake out there. The sour cream is critical. It is going to give you that rich, decadent taste with a subtle tang. It's that flavor you're used to tasting in a really good cheesecake. So add this into your other ingredients, and stir everything together. Okay, now we're going to make the whipped cream, which is going to make the cheesecake nice and thick and help it to set up in the fridge. We'll set this batter aside. We're going to need one and a half cups of heavy cream. We'll add this to our new clean bowl. Now we're going to need our electric mixer again. So make sure you have clean beaters. We are going to beat this heavy cream on high speed as long as it takes until stiff peaks form. What this means is that when you pull the beater out of the whipped cream, the peak that forms will hold its shape and not recede back into itself. All right, this whipped cream has reached the right consistency. As you can see, it kind of looks a little bit like Cool Whip. We are going to now add this back to our cheesecake batter mixture. Gently fold this whipped cream into the cheesecake batter. And now we'll give everything just a brief mix together with our electric mixer on low speed. We want to make sure that the whipped cream and the cheesecake batter are well combined, but you also don't want to over beat it. So make sure you keep the mixer on low. Now we have our nice and thick no-bake cheesecake batter. So what we're going to need to do is grab that graham cracker crust that we have chilling in the refrigerator and we'll pour this batter into our spring corn pan over our graham cracker crust. Smooth the batter evenly into the spring corn pan over your crust. And then to make things look nice and neat, I like to use an offset spatula to smooth over the cheesecake. Remember, this cheesecake isn't going to bake, so any lines or creases that you see on the top of the batter are still going to be there when it's done chilling. This cheesecake is going to need to chill in the refrigerator for about four hours before it's going to be ready to cut. Personally, I like to make mine the day before an event and let it chill overnight. All right, about four hours later, your no-bake cheesecake is ready to slice and serve. Let's take a look at it. You can serve this as is or you can add your favorite toppings. I know some people like to add cherry pie filling to the top of their cheesecakes. What I'm going to do is I need my homemade whipped cream recipe and I'm just going to go around and decorate the outside ring of the cheesecake just for appearances. You can totally skip this step if you want. All right, let's go ahead and cut in. That is all there is to making your own no-bake cheesecake. This is smooth and creamy and rich. It is just as good as a cheesecake that would have spent 45 plus minutes in the oven, so I really think you're going to like it and I hope you also appreciate how easy this is to make. Let's take a bite of this. Look at that texture. Guys, I'm going to go eat this. I really hope you'll try it out and let me know what you think. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.