Some Days You Just Need A (Lactose-Free) Cheesecake

Like a whole bunch of other Asians, our household can't handle their lactose, but sometimes, even though you know you'll pay dearly for it later, you just need a cheesecake. The problem with cheesecake is that it's full of dairy, and more importantly, full of lactose. But, if necessity is the mother of invention, then desperation is the father. And other desperate lactose intolerant people out there have made things like lactose-free thickened cream and lactose-free cream cheese. And thanks to those other inventive, desperate, lactose intolerant people, that means I have the ingredients to make a cheesecake that won't make everyone in this household feel like a balloon in a few hours. I've never made a cheesecake before. I see absolutely nothing going wrong with this idea. While I might be desperate enough to attempt making a cheesecake, I am not foolish enough to go all out. I'm going to go with a no-bake cheesecake because it looks easy. So first you need a base. The recipe calls for graham crackers, but we're in Australia, so I'm going to use Arnold's scotch fingers. Dang it. You know what? Close enough. It's still made in Australia. Technically, the recipe calls for biscuit crumbs, but I only have whole biscuits. And when you have a hammer, everything looks like fragile, easy-to-break biscuits. And look, I could have gotten lactose-free butter too, but that's just going to be sad. We're using lactose-free butter for this one. Mix your biscuit crumbs with the butter. And like I said earlier, I've never made cheesecake before, so we're doing this in a square pan. I'm sure we'll be fine. Now the filling. It's meant to be room-temperature cream cheese, but I don't have the time or patience for that. We're microwaving this one. Add the lactose-free cream cheese, lactose-free cream, lactose-free sugar, lactose-free lemon juice, lactose-free vanilla extract, and lactose-free salt. Beat until smooth and airy. Then scrape it all into the pan and smooth it out a little. Now the cheesecake just needs to chill in the fridge for a few hours. And because I really like blueberries and passion fruit, I'll be decorating the top of those fruits.