No-Bake Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

I’m sharing my hubby’s favourite dessert recipe today. It’s a creamy, no-bake raspberry cheesecake bar. This make a great all-year-round dessert because you can use frozen or fresh raspberries. The cream cheese filling is beaten until light and fluffy and folded together carefully with whipped cream to keep it light and airy. There is no gelatine in this recipe so the texture is soft and mousse-like.

I make a raspberry coulis to swirl on the top. A coulis is a smooth fruit sauce and contains much less sugar than jam, so you can actually taste the fruit! I cook the raspberries slowly and then strain them to remove the seeds. Cooking them concentrates the flavour more than if you were to use a fresh raspberry puree.

For the crust, you can use vanilla wine biscuits or graham crackers, I’ve put both variations in the recipe and the pictured cheesecake is using vanilla biscuits.

This makes a great base cheesecake, so if you’ve got other fruits you like better, you could make coulis from those and swirl that on instead!

No-Bake Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

Crust

Variation 1

• 165 g (10 1/2 sheets) graham crackers

• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

• 85 g (6 tablespoons) butter, melted

Variation 2

• 200g / 7 oz vanilla wine biscuits (round 2 cups of crumbs)

• 100g (7 tablespoons) butter, melted

Raspberries

• 125 g (1 cup) raspberries, fresh or frozen

• 25g (2 tablespoons) granulated sugar

Filling

• 240 g (1 cup) heavy cream, cold

• 450 g (16 oz) Block-style cream cheese, softened to room temperature

• 120 g (1 cup) powdered sugar,

• 60 g (1/4 cup) sour cream, room temperature

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Method

Line an 8×8 inch (20 x 20cm) square pan with parchment paper. Leave an overhang of parchment to lift the cheesecake from the pan to slice it.

Add graham crackers and sugar, or vanilla cookies to a food processor and blend them on medium speed until they achieve fine crumbs. If you have no food processor, add them to a large Ziploc bag and crush them with a heavy rolling pin or similar device.

Pour the melted butter and pulse to combine into a clumpy crumb mixture. Press the crumbs to the prepared pan evenly to create the crust. Place the pan in the fridge while you prepare the raspberries.

Raspberries

Add the raspberries to a small saucepan over low-medium heat along with the sugar.

Cook for around 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until the raspberries break down and the sauce slightly thickens.

Once cooked, remove from the heat and push the cooked raspberries through a fine-mesh strainer, balanced over a small bowl, rubbing them along the bottom of the sieve with a spoon. Take your time doing this to get all the raspberry pulp you can, leaving behind the seeds. Let the raspberry sauce chill in the fridge while the filling is made.

Filling

Pour the heavy cream into a medium bowl and beat it on medium speed with a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form. Take care not to over-whip it. Set aside.

Add the cream cheese to a stand mixer bowl and beat with a paddle attachment just until smooth. Add the sour cream, lemon, sugar, salt, and vanilla and beat again to combine. Add half the whipped cream and use a spatula to fold it in. Continue with the remaining cream, carefully folding it all together.

Scoop the mixture onto the chilled crust and use an offset spatula to smooth it out.

Dollop the cooled raspberry sauce over the cream cheese mixture and swirl it with a skewer.

Cover the cheesecake tightly and chill in the fridge for at least 8 hours or up to 2 days. The longer it can be chilled, the better it will set.

Once chilled. use a sharp knife to slice the cheesecake into 12 rectangles. You can cut extra if you want small squares. Cleaning the knife between each slice will keep it neater.

Happy baking!