The Ultimate No-Bake Key Lime Cheesecake | Julia At Home

Today I'm making a key lime cheesecake but it's an icebox cheesecake. So if it's hot outside you don't have to have the oven on the whole time. Just a little bit to set that crust and then it sets up in the fridge. It's brilliant and that's what we're going to start with today because you need to let it sit in the fridge for at least six hours. So we're going to start by blooming some gelatin. So here I have a little bit of heavy cream. This is four tablespoons of heavy cream and this is a whole package of gelatin. Now when I first made this recipe I worried that all this gelatin would make the cheesecake have kind of a rubbery texture which I don't like. It is so light and fluffy the texture of this cheesecake it kind of knocks your socks off. All right so a whole packet of gelatin right into the cream. I'm going to whisk it in there make sure that gelatin gets nicely hydrated and we're going to set this aside about five minutes and then before we add it to the cheesecake of course we'll melt that gelatin. All right now on to the rest of the filling. Here I have my trusty stand mixer. I'm going to add more heavy cream. This is a cup and a quarter of heavy cream. To this we're going to add some sugar two-thirds of a cup of sugar. The great thing about this is it's not a super sweet cheesecake. You really can taste the lime flavor which is what I love. I'm going to put this on the mixer medium high speed until you get soft peaks on the cream. All right you can see that cream has got some structure. You can see the tines of the whisk and how they're leaving trails which means it's the right time to add the cream cheese. Here I have a pound of cream cheese and this is the full fat stuff. This is the real deal. You don't want to use low fat here because the cheesecake just won't set up in the refrigerator. It'll be really soupy. So here I have a pound of cream cheese. As I said it's been sitting at room temperature. You can see how soft it is and having the cream cheese be nice and soft like this is really key. Don't microwave it just let it hang out at room temperature. This way it'll incorporate really easily into the whipped cream. All right so with the mixer on medium low I'm going to start adding the cream cheese a piece at a time until it's nice and combined. Nice. All right and again you want to mix it on medium low just to get that cream cheese combined. Looks like it's mostly there and now I'm going to add a little bit of salt just a pinch of salt. All right here comes the lime. This is three tablespoons of lime juice. Now I mentioned at the top that this was a key lime cheesecake. Truth is you can use key limes if you have them. Up here in Boston they're a little hard to get and they're quite expensive and I found that just using regular Persian limes delivers a delicious flavor. So I don't really worry that I'm not using key limes and if you want to have truth in menus then just call it a lime cheesecake. It brings the house down no matter what you use. All right so I'm going to put this on medium low add the three tablespoons of lime juice and just let it all come together. All right make sure all those clumps of cream cheese get down into the bowl so that it can get touched by the whisk. Now I'm going to turn it on to medium high crank it and let it get really smooth. It takes a few minutes. While this is whipping it's time to melt that gelatin on the stove. All right that's looking pretty good. Now I'm going to put this over medium high. We're going to add the melted gelatin mixture. I'm also going to add some more lime flavor. This is two tablespoons of finely grated lime zest. We're going to add it right in and we're going to whip that mixture till it's nice and smooth and airy. That takes a few minutes. All right that looks good and airy and smooth and it smells like limes. This filling is ready to go on the crust and this crust is terrific. It's made with animal crackers. So you grind up animal crackers to get a cup of crumbs. Then you toss it with three tablespoons of sugar, a teaspoon of lime zest, and four tablespoons of melted butter and you pack it in the bottom of the spring form pan and you bake it at 325 for just 13 minutes until it's golden and fragrant. Then you let it cool completely and then it's ready for the cheesecake filling and that's the only baking you have to do for this. You can do it well in advance. You can even do it in the morning if it's going to be a hot day. This cheesecake is so good. Every time I make it reminds me of my father-in-law who loved key lime everything. Key lime cookies, key lime pie of course. He would have loved this cake. All right into the pan it goes. All right now I think one of the nicest parts about a cheesecake is that sort of mirror smooth top and it's hard to get that with an ice box cheesecake because how it goes in the fridge is how it's going to look when it comes out because the gelatin will set it up. So I have a little bit of a trick to get a smooth finish. One you can wrap it on the counter like this. Gets any big air bubbles out and smooths the top. The second trick is to get some hot water in a mug which I have back here. Hot water. So I have some hot water in a mug. Have a little offset spatula. I'm going to heat up the spatula and the hot water because that'll help melt the gelatin and then you can just really smooth the top. Gets most of those wrinkles out. A few wrinkles are okay. If your cream cheese filling is a little on the stiff side because maybe it wasn't as soft this is a great great tip. That looks a lot better. Wrap it again on the counter. Into the fridge this goes at least six hours. Overnight is best but it actually holds well for up to three days. Now normally you'd wrap something like this with plastic wrap but I have never been able to wrap it with plastic wrap without the plastic sticking to the top and marring that surface so I skipped that step. Into the fridge it goes. It is time for the grand finale the key lime cheesecake. It is set up nicely in the fridge. You can see it's not moving or jiggling which is perfect. Now to unmold this it's easiest if you use a wet damp towel like this. Something nice and big. I used hot water so this is warm. Just going to drape it on the outside of the cheesecake. Let it sit for just a minute. If you think about it this is thickened with gelatin so as the heat and the warmth travels through the metal to that outer rim of cheesecake it's just going to melt that gelatin ever so slightly help it loosen from the edges of the pan. Much better than going around with a paring knife which I've done. A paring knife makes dragging marks whereas this is just a lot better. All right I'm gonna rub down the outside. All right no time like the present. I'm gonna unhinge the sides. Gentle gentle. Nothing but net. This cheesecake is so good. Now to get it off the bottom of the pan. It's not really stuck to the bottom at all the crust. I'm just going to take a nice long thin flexible spatula slide it right under and then you can slide it right off the pan bottom right onto a cake stand and there you go. Nice clean easy. That's why I love working with these icebox cheesecakes because it makes you look like a rock star and it's really not that hard. Now to garnish. You don't need to do this but I think it looks good. I have some lime slices that I sliced wafer thin and now what you want to do is you want to take a lime slice dip it in sugar and then you can just kind of arrange it on the top. Sometimes you can slice up through the middle of the lime slice to help make that design. Also helps you determine all the slices. I like to get anywhere from eight to ten slices out of a cheesecake this size and if you have company just you know it just looks really impressive. It's just not that hard. Looks elegant even though it's just an icebox cheesecake. Oh that's a hearty slice and I'm not apologizing for it. You can see that. Look at that. I love this cake. It is so easy to serve. You get perfect slices every time because that crust is super sturdy. Don't mind if I do. Every time I make it I'm so surprised at the texture. It is not dense at all. It is airy. It tastes like cream cheese and it tastes like limes. Not too sweet and that crust is one of my favorite made with the animal crackers. See you next time. Thanks for watching. What'd you think? Leave a comment below and let me know what you're excited to cook this week. And while you're at it hit that subscribe button. 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