Bavarian(t) Cheese Cake

Scuttlebutts has been closed for years, but the Bavarian cheesecake -- unforgettable!

Back in New Jersey, our favorite watering hole, Scuttlebutts, and the Fitzsimmons family who owned the place brings back very fond memories. Once our kids were beyond needing a babysitter, Scuttlebutts was a weekly haunt for us and a bunch of our friends and family. We used to get a kick out of showing up at home after closing to our teenagers giving us grief about staying out later than they had.

Weekends were a total hoot with Fitz brothers Liam and Patrick behind the bar, brother Michael in the kitchen, and once their parents went home after the dinner rush....... I'll just leave it at that.

Michael was an amazingly creative chef who elevated this little neighborhood Irish pub to some amazing culinary heights -- in addition to his traditional pub fare. One of his desserts that really stood out to me was this mini cheese cake thing that was almost pure white, but resembled a small flan in size. It had no bottom crust, was light as a feather, and tasted like rich whipped cream. Mike served it with a bit of fresh fruit sliced on top, strawberries stand out in my memories.

Bavarian cheesecake variant.

After he served it a couple of time, my cousin Angela and I accosted him when he emerged from the kitchen one night to ask about it and hopefully get the recipe. Mike said it was Bavarian cheesecake and (because we were regulars and would have nagged him forever) gave us the recipe. I've made it several times throughout the 20 or so years that I've been in possession of the recipe, usually in a springform pan rather than those cute individual ones like Mike made. I have on occasion poured the batter into ramekins. Since it's a no-bake recipe, you can put it in almost anything.

Mike's Bavarian Cheesecake recipe included cream cheese, heavy whipping cream, sugar, vanilla, and gelatin. You simply whip the cream cheese, sugar and most of the heavy cream, add the vanilla, dissolve the gelatin into some heavy cream and beat it all together and refrigerate. It's SO good.

For the record, if you Google Bavarian cheesecake, you will find several variations or recipes and none that are the same as Mike's. The recipe I'm sharing here is my tweaking of his recipe which I am calling Bavariant. Get it?

A week or two ago, when summer really hit with the arrival of a 'heat dome' and 90 degree temps, I was laying in bed thinking about what I could serve for dinner that didn't require any cooking or heating. I decided on swordfish Ceviche, chicken salad, zucchini salad, and faro salad (I cooked the grains at 6:30 am while it was still cool out), and then remembered this no-bake cheesecake.

I didn't have cream cheese in the house, but I did have that 10% milkfat Greek yogurt that I'm always yapping about. I also wanted some kind of bottom crust because I wanted to make the recipe in a tart dish and wanted half a chance of getting nice wedge shaped slices (for photos) out of the dish. I was also out of graham crackers and packaged graham cracker crumbs but had puffed quinoa kicking around. PLUS, I wanted to experiment with some lavender syrup I recently made. Here's where I landed.....

THE RECIPE:

1C 10% milk fat plain Greek yogurt

1C heavy whipping cream

3/4C granulated white sugar separated

1/4C of warm something to dissolve the gelatin

I used 2T lemon juice 2T lavender syrup warmed up a bit

OR you can use 3T warmed heavy cream plus 1T pure vanilla extract

2 packets unflavored gelatin

1C puffed quinoa

1/2 stick butter melted

Cream sugar, and yogurt

Quinoa for the crust

Melted butter and sugat added to quinoa

Fork blend until well mixed

Gelatin andliquid for dissolving

Gelitan added to cream mixture

Whisk until it stiffend

after crumbs are pressed into plate, add the cream mixture

Chill uuntil set

In a large bowl beat the yogurt, cream and 1/2C sugar together until smooth.

In a blender, grind the puffed quinoa

In a bowl combine ground quinoa and 1/4 C sugar

Add the melted butter and work until well blended

Press the quinoa crust into a tart dish, pie plate or spring-form pan

Mix and whisk the gelatin with the syrup / lemon juice mixture OR the warmed cream / vanilla until all the gelatin is dissolved

Whisk the gelatin mixture into the cream/yogurt mixture and stir until it thickens a bit

Spoon the filling onto the quinoa crust and spread it evenly in the plat or pan

Refrigerate a couple of hours until it sets

Serve with fresh fruit -- or not. It's delicious by itself.

NOTE:

The lemon / lavender flavor was really nice and with that in mind, I plan to try other syrups for flavoring in the future. I'm thinking orange or ginger might be yummy.