Does eating well get ANY better than this? I don’t think so!!!
For some reason I’ve been hankering for goats milk ricotta cheese lately … and one of the advantages of making your own ingredients, is that things like ricotta are just as easy to make with goats milk as they are cows milk! Goats milk ricotta is a thing of beauty! lovely and creamy, a small curd, and a slight tang! I won’t post detailed instructions here, as there are lots of good tutorials online. For my ricotta, I prefer a mild vinegar or lemon juice as the acid, and find that 1/4 cup acid for each gallon of milk is plenty.
Pro-tip — most instructions will have you use cheescloth, BUT it is really too coarsely textured, and you will find curds get caught in between the layers. I use a fine mesh sieve or a jelly-bag.
This cheesecake is grain-free and refined sugar-free (if you wanted to make this SCD legal, dry-curd cottage cheese would work equally well) The goal here was to make something that actually tasted and looked like a proper treat, but still possessed some healing properties 🙂
The ricotta for this has had almost all of the whey strained out (helps it keep longer in the fridge), with a texture like farmers cheese — this results in a fairly dense cheesecake. IF you like your cheesecake creamier, reduce the ricotta by 75 grams and add 1/2 cup heavy cream and an extra egg yolk to the mixture (to keep it SCD legal, use coconut cream).
One final tip on the method: this will bake fine, standing on its own in the oven, but remember that cheesecake is basically a custard, so baking this in a bain marie will also help create an even creamier texture.
Enjoy this with a variety of fruit compotes – blueberries are just coming into season here and pair brilliantly with lemon, but we’ll have a progression of fruits and berries right through to the fall that work equally well with the lemon (switch up the spices in the cheescake to pair depending on what fruit you are using!)
Ingredients
- Crust:
- 1/4 cup almond flour
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 T coconut oil, melted and cooled
- 3 T honey
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg white
- Filling:
- 500 grams ricotta cheese (I used goats milk ricotta)
- 120 grams honey (up to 150 grams, to taste)
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- grated zest of 2 lemons
- 2 T lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
- Compote:
- 2 cups blueberries
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
Instructions
- Combine the dry ingredients for the crust in a medium bowl, and whisk to combine.
- Combine the wet ingredients in a small bowl, whisking to combine.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Let the mixture stand 5 minutes or so for the coconut flour to absorb moisture.
- Press into a springform pan. (You can use this crust for all kinds of pies -- if you need to blind-bake it, bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Combine all the filling ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth and creamy.
- Pour the filling into the crust-lined springform pan.
- Bake in a bain-marie for 60-70 minutes until the centre is just barely set. It will firm up as it cools.
- For the compote, cook the blueberries, honey, lemon juice and water in a saucepan over medium heat for 20-25 minutes until thickened. Let cool (store leftovers in the refrigerator)
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This cheesecake sounds awesomely delicious!
Trying this cake out now. Will let you know how it turns out.
Absolutely delicious – light – but certainly sweet enough and served with Canadian grown wild blue berries – superb. Loved the crust – just perfect.
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed the cheesecake! (there’s nothing quite like wild blueberries! yum!)