Simple Strawberry Cheesecake

This recipe came about as a result of a bit of late night experimentation when I had a craving for cheesecake. I didn't want a really heavy one so used fat-free Greek yoghurt and light Philadelphia cream cheese. I've made it since without the biscuit base and for some reason I can justify eating a lot more of it to myself as the base is where the 'bad' things are. It's not really heavy like other cheesecakes and I'm sure it's MUCH lighter on the calories and fat too so I consider it semi-healthy (not that I need much persuasion for a good cheesecake!!). I added a load of strawberries to it but if you wanted to add something else instead or leave it as a plain vanilla one it'd work just as well. This recipe makes around enough for a standard sandwich tin sized cheesecake (about 12cm I think). I had to improvise and use a bigger rectangular one as my baking stuff is packed in the attic of the new house I've moved into and I was too lazy to go and dig it out. If you have too much mixture just put it into a ramekin and bake by itself.

I find the Greek yoghurt makes the cheesecake really creamy but stops it from being too heavy. It's such a simple and quick recipe and requires minimal effort. 

Ingredients

200g digestive biscuits, crushed

50g melted butter

200g fat free yoghurt

200g light cream cheese

2 eggs

4-6 tbsp icing sugar (to taste)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 punnet chopped strawberries (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees Celsius.

2. Mix the butter and biscuits together and press into a tin (I had to improvise as I didn't have the usual sandwich sized tin so used a bigger rectangular one which made a bigger but thinner base). Bake for 5 minutes.

3. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Be careful not to overmix it. 

4. Add the cream cheese mixture to the top of the biscuit base and bake for 25 minutes at 120 degrees Celsius until firm on top but with a slight wobble.

5. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Tips

- It works really well with raspberries and white chocolate chunks!

- It tastes better cold. I was really impatient and tried to eat some before it was cool and despite still being good, it was much better after I'd waited for it to cool down.