Berry Cheesecake with Walnut crust

Cheesecake with Walnut crust and berries
This one is seriously my favorite cheesecake. Don't let the amount of pictures make you think it's hard, because it isn't. ( If Gluten intolerant, use Gluten free flour for the crust)

Ingredients for Filling:
12 ounces of cream cheese
1 cup of ricotta cheese
2 cups cool whip, or homemade sweetened whipped cream
2/3 cup of powdered sugar
1 cup orange juice (I like to buy fresh squeezed orange juice)
1 packet of gelatin (equal to 1/4 ounce of the gelatin powder)
Optional- 1 cup of chopped strawberries
                1 1/2 cups of blueberries
                2 tsp Port wine

Ingredients for crust
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour (or gluten free flour)
1 cup of walnuts
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Making the Crust
Cut the butter into smaller cubes.  Add to the flour and powdered sugar in a clean bowl.

Start to work with your hands or a pastry blender.  You are looking for the butter to spread out into the flour and sugar mixture and start to form a ball of dough.  It will seem too dry at first, do not add water.  Keep mixing until almost together.

Add the walnuts. You can chop them ahead of time, but I find just breaking them up with my hands as I knead it works fine.

Once the nuts are in, it really starts to form a nice ball.

Spray 9" spring form pan or pie plate tin with non stick spray or grease the pan with margarine.   Take your ball of crust dough, and press over bottom. Bake approximately 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees F. When done, it changes color slightly and is more of a solid crust.

If you don't have a spring form pan, a pie plate will work fine.  Until this last Christmas I used a pie plate.

Let cool and start the filling.  

To make the filling:

Ingredients for Filling:
12 ounces of cream cheese
1 cup of ricotta cheese
2 cups cool whip, or homemade sweetened whipped cream
2/3 cup of powdered sugar
1 cup orange juice (I like to buy fresh squeezed orange juice)
1 packet of gelatin (equal to 1/4 ounce of the gelatin powder)
Optional- 1 cup of chopped strawberries
                1 1/2 cups of blueberries
                2 tsp Port wine

Heat the Orange Juice in small pan, sprinkle gelatin over the juice and let soften l minute.  Heat, stirring constantly, until gelatin dissolves and thickens-about 3 minutes. Let cool or put in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Then blend the cream cheese and ricotta cheese in a large bowl until smooth.  stir in the powdered sugar. 

Add the cooled gelatin mix to the cheese mixture, on low at first, then higher, blend until smooth.



A rolled towel under your bowl will help.



 Fold in the cool whip or whipped cream.  Folding is a technique where it leaves a lot of air and volume in your dish.





Using a rubber spatula, you place in the batter with the edge of the spoon (Figure 1), flatten out the spoon and scrape the bottom of the bowl (figure 2), and then lift out with the edge of the spoon side again, and place that spoonful on top (Figure 3).  Turn the bowl and continue this method until all mixed in and creamy



Figure 1



Figure 2

Figure 3


Ready to fill onto the crust.

 Spread into crust.
You can easily smooth it out nicely with an offset spatula. 

Chill 6 hours in the refrigerator.  Remove exterior spring form when thoroughly chilled and voila.

For something extra special, try adding decorations or berries.  I added Strawberries and blueberries drizzled with port wine on mine.

 Cut up the strawberries into small pieces. I usually slice them first the long way, then turn them and slice into rough julienne or long strips, and then cut the long strips into 3-4 pieces.  Blueberries, just washed, dried a little with a paper towel.

 I added 1 tsp of old Port wine to each bowl of fruit before adding to the cheesecake.

Mix up a little to get all berries covered.  Also good when berries aren't as sweet as you'd like.

I wanted to do a heart design in the center and blueberries all around.  I took a cookie cutter and placed it where I wanted the heart to be, and pushed it in about 1/4 of an inch.

Then I started to fill in the strawberries.

I also did a row of blueberries lined around the heart to help it stand out once the form is removed.

Continue to fill in the blueberries.  I could have used more blueberries, now that I look at it in a picture.  Press the heart into the cheesecake a little more so even with blueberries.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Chill in the refrigerator for 6 hours.  Once done, remove the cookie cutter, comes out easily.  Use a knife, and cut around the pan edge to loosen and free up easily.

Remove the spring form ring of the pan.  Use a large spatula to pick up whole cake and transfer to a serving plate.  This crust holds up to that well.

Finished !