Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Strawberry Cheesecake Pi Day

With Pi Day rapidly approaching, I went to the local open-air discount produce market to look for affordable filling. I found lightly crushed strawberries, 2 lbs for a dollar. After looking at several strawberry pie recipes, I decided to put a strawberry jello top on a cheesecake bottom with a pretzel crust.

Ingredients
Crust
- 3/4 cup unsalted pretzels, crushed
- 1/4 cup granola
- 3/8 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 T sugar
- 1/4 T salt
Cheesecake
- 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/8 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 t lemon juice
- 1/4 t vanilla
- dash of salt
- 1 egg
Fruit Gel
- 1 package strawberry gelatin
- 2 1/2 cups strawberries
- 1 cup boiling water
- 3 ice cubes

Directions
Crust
- Combine all ingredients. Press into 9" pie plate.
- Bake at 400°F for 8 - 10 min
Cheesecake
- Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually blend in remaining ingredients, and beat well. Pour into prepared crust.
- Bake at 325°F until the center is set, about 18-20 min. Cool before topping.
Fruit Gel
- Dissolve gelatin in 1 cup boiling water. Stir in 3 ice cubes. Allow to chill for 30 min.
- Spoon fruit onto cheesecake layer. Pour gelatin over fruit. Chill pie until set, about an hour.

The result:


Variant: Use corn chex cereal in place of the pretzels and granola, omitting salt. Double the cheescake filling, and cook for ~24 min. Use 2 cups frozen berries in place of strawberries and ice cubes.

1 comment:

Kyle Szklenski said...

Dang. That looks really good.