Pressure Cooker Cheesecake......

I know - I said there wouldn't be any more baking or recipes for a while due to the diet, but we had a birthday in the house yesterday and I had to make a cake/dessert to celebrate.

Cheesecake is one of my hubby's favorite treats and as it's quite low in wheat it seemed a good choice. It must be over a year since I last baked one and had all the ingredients to hand, well why not?

Normally I would bake my cheesecake in the oven sat in a water bath and leave it in there to cool with the oven door closed (this is supposed to prevent the dreaded cracked top, however, they do still sometimes crack). Plus there's the chilling time to add on to that.

Then I read about using a pressure cooker for making cheesecake. What? I would never have thought that was possible, but time was running short I decided to give it a whirl.

I used my regular basic cheesecake recipe:

150g digestive biscuits, crushed to fine crumbs
75g melted butter.

Mix these 2 ingredients together, press it into the base of a 20 cm springform tin and pop it in the fridge to chill. Make sure the tin is not too wide to fit in your pressure cooker!

It helps greatly if the following ingredients are at room temperature before you begin.

400g full fat cream cheese
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100ml sour cream

Beat the cream cheese until smooth and soft, then add the sugar and mix in. Add the 2 eggs and vanilla and beat until thoroughly mixed. Mix in the sour cream.

Pour into the tin and smooth the surface.

Put the trivet in the bottom of the pressure cooker and pour in water to reach just under the trivet. In my pressure cooker this takes 500ml. Carefully position the cake tin on the trivet and close the lid. Bring up to pressure and cook for 15 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally. Remove the cake from the cooker, let it cool then chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Run a knife around the edge of the tin before releasing the spring clip. Top with your choice of fruit, I used raspberries as we have an abundance of them in the garden at the moment and made a glaze from red quick-gel and a little raspberry juice.

Verdict - I will cook it this way from now on. There was no cracking on top and the filling seemed to be lighter in texture than when I bake it yet it was perfectly set. There was just a tiny little puddle of water sat on the top of the cake when I opened the cooker but this was easily absorbed with a sheet of kitchen towel.

Enjoy!