Today I made a sugar free/grain free cheesecake. I cannot take much credit for it as I grabbed the recipe from Sarah Wilson‘s great website (I quit Sugar– check it out). I did however make it with a twist as I rarely follow recipes to the letter (see below).

Lately I have been put off by additives in products (just because I don’t know what they are) and look for easy alternatives.So instead of buying cream cheese, I thought…”Why not make it!” Its actually pretty easy and works out about half the price of commercial cream cheese.

CREAM CHEESE

This recipe made about 500gms of cream cheese:

-6 cups of milk

-2 cups of cream

-a teaspoon of salt

-juice of a lemon (about 6 tablespoons)

-Heat up the milk, cream and salt in a saucepan to 82 degrees using a thermometer. (I prefer using a double boiler, or placing the saucepan in a larger saucepan of water).

-Remover from the heat and gently stir through the lemon juice. The curds and whey will begin to separate

-let sit for about 15 minutes

-Strain the separated mixture through a sieve lined with a couple of layers of muslin, with a bowl underneath to catch the whey. To make a firm cream cheese I let this sit overnight in the fridge.

-you can then use it on bread, to make dips or in cheesecakes!

-If you are interested in my adaption of Sarah Wilson’s cheesecake, I followed her recipe, except I used hazelnuts in place of pistachios and I used my 500gms of homemade cream-cheese and 250 grams of homemade Labneh. 

And how did my cheesecake go?? It was delicious, but after making the two cheeses and the almond meal and then baking the cheesecake, it slipped on the bench. It was no longer lovely looking for a birthday cake but became a deconstructed cheesecake! Sadly that is how it works out.