We love a roadside picnic or eating on the deck at the beach. We pack a few salads, maybe pan bagnat or other sandwiches with cookies and fruit for dessert. Peach Melba is a favorite but not easily transported until I came up with this recipe, peach melba cheesecake to go in a jar. It is delicious and easy to prepare. You can top it with any ripe seasonal fruits, peaches and a cherry shown here. Sauce it or not. And the cheesecake keeps for a week when refrigerated.
A bushel of ripe peaches and a bag of Tate’s Bake Shop Butter Crunch Cookies inspired this recipe. Charlie adores Peach Melba, a classic combination of a poached peach astride a scoop of vanilla ice cream with raspberry purée. We had a bag of butter crunch cookies when I first made this recipe. I pulsed about 9 of them in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, just until the crumbs were fine and uniform. You need 1 ½ cups of crumbs and graham crackers will do. But treat yourself to something more interesting. As long as you use a crisp dry cookie, you will get a pleasant result.
Follow Along
Here are some photos so you can follow along as I made the cheesecake in a jar.
You can see the texture of the crumbs here as I add the melted butter.
You just stir the crumbs and butter until the crumbs appear evenly wet.
Each jar gets 1/4 cup of the crumb mixture. I used Bonne Maman jars, which hold about 12 ounces of jam. This size jar leaves lots of room for fresh fruit to be added.
Tamping down the crumbs with the measuring cups compresses the crust.
When making cheesecake, its important to use softened cream cheese. This keeps lumps from forming if the cream cheese is cold. Start by leaving the cream cheese out at room temperature for 30 minute to an hour. Then blend it on medium speed until it is smooth. Scraping the bowl throughout also helps keep lumps from forming. Just resist the urge to beat the cream cheese on high speed and for along time. It will break down and turn runny.
I pipe the filling into the jars to keep the filling from touching the rim. You can certainly fill the jars with a spoon.
Here’s a jar of cheesecake ready to refrigerate until needed. It keeps like this for a week.
And here I am enjoying the fruits of my labor at the beach in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups fine ground cookie crumbs made from a crisp cookie such as Tate’s Bake Shop Butter Crunch Cookies
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
3 Tablespoons melted butter
6 ounces (1¼ cups) heavy cream
12 ounces cream, softened
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup plain Greek style yogurt
One 10-ounce bag frozen raspberries, thawed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
Fresh peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries or berries
Directions
- To make the Cookie Crust, combine the cookie crumbs, ginger and butter. Stir with a fork until the crumbs are evenly moistened with the butter.
- Set aside six clean jelly jars and their lids, such as those from Bonne Maman preserves. Remove the lids. Using ¼ cup measure, divide the crumb mixture evenly between the six jars. Tamp down the crumbs in the bottom of each jar using the side of the measuring cup, return the lids to the jars and refrigerate them until ready to add the cheesecake batter.
- To make the No Bake Cheesecake, whip the heavy cream to stiff peaks. Refrigerate the whipped cream.
- Place the cream cheese in the same bowl used to whip the cream. Beat the cream cheese using the beater attachment on low to medium low speed for a minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the sugar and beat for another minute or two until the cream cheese is soft and lump free. Blend in the lime juice and zest.
- Fold in the yogurt by hand with a rubber spatula. Then fold in the whipped cream in five or six swift movements. (You want the cream to stay buoyant to lighten the mixture.)
- Place the cream cheese filling in a pastry bag with a large plain tip. (You can also use a Ziploc bag. Cut the corner of the bag to get a 1½-inch opening.) Pipe the cream cheese filling evenly between the six prepared jars. If you want, use a spatula to level the cream cheese filling. Cover and refrigerate. The cheesecakes in a jar keep for a week when refrigerated.
- To make the Raspberry Sauce, place the thawed raspberries, their juices and the sugar into a blender bowl. Blend on high speed until the berries are smooth. Strain through a fine sieve if you’d like or skip this step as I often do. Refrigerate until needed. Keeps for up to 1 week.
- To serve, remove the jar lids. Slice up the peaches and place some in each jar. Top with a few tablespoons of the Raspberry Sauce and a little grated lime zest too if you like. (You’ll have leftover sauce that you can freeze.)