No Bake Cheesecake with Agar-Agar

I promised to find the cheesecake recipe for a cooking workshop I participated in.  Easy right?  Not.  The workshop only lasts 4 hours.  I thought, we can just do a no bake recipe and it'll have enough time to chill if we put it in the freezer.  I settled on a Martha Stewart recipe, and decided to test it with actual fresh cheese, instead of cream cheese.  It was a disaster.  One of the cheeses had started to have a little bit of funky flavor, and it ruined the whole cheesecake.  So I tried it again, with regular cream cheese.  Even after 24 hours it was soupy.  So I called on my pastry chef friend for help.  The answer- Use Gelatin!  Unfortunately gelatin takes at least twice as much time to jell as the workshop actually lasts, and half the people in the group are either vegetarian or muslim.  So I was left with the choice of trying agar-agar, or eating warm cheesecake in the middle of summer.

I'd never used agar-agar, so I took to researching it.  I never could find a plain no bake cheesecake recipe made with agar-agar.  Apparently mango cheesecake dominates in this category.  I also found that a lot of sites give you information that's totally inaccurate, for instance, telling you that you can just substitute agar-agar for gelatin.  Agar-agar is much stronger than gelatin, and you could end up with something more like cheesecake jello if you don't adjust the measurements.  Whereas gelatin isn't supposed to be boiled, agar-agar has to be boiled for 4-5 minutes to activate.  The hot agar-agar is then supposed to be blended into something that's already warm.  Otherwise you can end up with lumps.  Neither can be frozen.  What's great about the agar-agar though, is that it starts to firm up in 15 minutes, even before it cools down, and will stay firm at room temperature.  So on the third try, I finally came up with my own recipe that turned out great.  It's a light summer time cheesecake, that you don't have to turn on the oven for, and you don't have to wait 24 hours for either.

No Bake Cheesecake with Agar-Agar

Ingredients

For the Crust :

50g - ¼ Cup Sugar

125g - ½ Cup Melted Butter

240g - 2 Cups Sablés Anglais crumbs (apx. 16 cookies) McVities brand

For the Filling :

450g - 16 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese

400g - 14 oz. Sweetened Condensed Milk (Lait sucré concentré, a 397g can)

1 tsp. Vanilla extract

2-4 Tbsp. Juice of ½ a lemon

¾ tsp Powdered Agar-agar (1.5 g or half a 3g package)

33cl - 11 oz. Whipping Cream – In France use Elle & Vire,

Crème liquide entière professionnel 35% from Monoprix

Instructions

Make the Crust :

-Process the sablés anglais into fine crumbs in a food processor.

-In a bowl, mix the cookie crumbs with the sugar, then add the melted butter, and combine.

-Press the mixture firmly and evenly into your pie plate.

-Refrigerate

Make the Filling :

You need two sauce pans, and electric beater, a whip, a metal strainer, two bowls, a spatula and spoons.

Prepare the ingredients :

-Put the powdered agar-agar in a sauce pan with a cup of water.

-Put the sweetened condensed milk in a second sauce pan.

-Start by whipping the cream. Beat the cold whipping cream with an electric beater until stiff peaks form. Store in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it.

-In a second bowl, beat the cream cheese, vanilla, and lemon juice together.

-Start heating the agar-agar, boil for 4-5 minutes. At the same time, heat the sweetened condensed milk on low heat. You may need to whip the agar-agar as it boils so that it's well incorporated.

-Pour the agar-agar into sweetened condensed milk through the strainer. Quickly whip the agar-agar and the sweetened condensed milk together with a whip.

-Immediately after, use electric beaters to incorporate the hot mixture a little bit at a time into the bowl of cheese mixture.

-Fold in the whipped cream with a spatula until it's well incorporated.

-Pour the filling into the crust and refrigerate until completely cooled.