Creamy, easy no-bake cheesecake just makes sense during the summer since it’s chilled a few hours or overnight, and you don’t have to heat your oven, prepare a water bath, or worry about cracks on the surface, etc.
There is a time and place for a conventional cheesecake, but my version of this no-bake cheesecake has a light, fresh, and citrusy filling with a thick, no-bake ginger snap crust.
I can usually find ginger snaps year-round in grocery stores close to the Nilla Wafers or on the top shelf in the cookie aisle. I make mine in a deep-dish Pyrex pie plate, but I’ve also done it in an 8×8 casserole dish. Springform is pretty but not necessary, and the crust tends to crumble a bit more since it hasn’t been baked.
Just don’t use too large of a dish because you want a nice, thick cookie crust. We like a less-sweet cheesecake pie, so I only use a half cup of powdered sugar, but you can increase this to ¾ or a full cup if you’d like.
You don’t need a food processor to destroy the cookies. You can use a rolling pin to crush the cookies in a sturdy zipper baggie. Just make sure your crust crumbs are pretty fine and uniform in size.
TIPS:
- You want softened cream cheese that you beat without adding anything else. This ensures that you don’t create lumps, which keeps the finished cheesecake from looking and tasting smooth and uniform.
- A food processor works the fastest to pulse the cookies into crumbs, but you can just use a baggie and rubber mallet or rolling pin (and a sturdy surface) to crush these into uniform crumbs. Because the crust doesn’t bake, you want to ensure the crumbs aren’t TOO large, or they won’t stick together in the chill/rest process.
- For once, it’s okay (and necessary!) to melt the stick of butter. Softened butter won’t incorporate well.
- If you aren’t comfortable using your fingers to press the crust into the pan, you can use a flexible rubber spatula, it just might take a little longer.
- While you can start cutting very soft pieces of cheesecake immediately, to really let the lime zest and ginger snaps meld with the creamy center, let it rest in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.
- The finished cheesecake has powerful flavors in the lime and ginger, so you don’t need a sauce or topping. A bit of extra whipped cream may be welcome on the top or side, though.
- Pressed for time? Skip whipping the cream first and just pour it in last to your bowl of ingredients and mix thoroughly. It will make for a denser, less fluffy cheesecake pie, but the taste will be the same otherwise.
No-Bake Lime Cheesecake With Gingersnap Crust
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Ingredients
- 1 box of good quality ginger snaps crushed into 2 cups of cookie crumbs.
- 1 stick of butter melted
- 2 pkgs of full fat cream cheese softened
- ½ c of powdered sugar
- 1-1/2 c of heavy cream whipped
- 2 large limes
- 3 T of lime juice
Instructions
- Take your packages of cream cheese out of the fridge and make sure they are soft, but not melted.
- Crush or food process the ginger snaps so that you have a full two cups of crumbs. (If you don’t have a food processor, you can add them to a sturdy zipper baggie and beat them with the flat side of a rolling pin. They don’t need to be powdered; just have the crumbs be a uniform cracker-crumb consistency.)
- Add to a mixing bowl.
- Melt the butter completely. Pour butter over the cookie crumbs. Mix with a fork or wooden spoon. If you’ve used unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt here. If you REALLY love the flavor of ginger, add a ½ t of powdered ginger now, but if you have good quality snaps, you may not need it. Sometimes I add ½ t of powdered cloves here, too, or pumpkin-pie spice.
- Press the cookie-butter mixture into your glass pie pan with your fingers, making sure the crumbs go up the side. Ensure you can’t see the pan through the crust, and overall that it’s even. Set aside.
- Zest the two limes and set aside. Slice two round “wheels” off the limes and juice the rest. Set aside zest and juice separately.
- In a mixing bowl, whip the cream into stiff peaks. Set aside.
- In another larger bowl, add the cream cheese and beat until smooth. Add the powdered sugar gradually, then the lime juice. Beat until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream and lime zest.
- With a rubber spatula, scrape the mixture into the prepared cookie crust and pile it high, smoothing the cream cheese mixture until it’s evenly spread across the center of the crust’s surface.
- Optional: Garnish by laying the two lime wheels flat in the center of the cheesecake.
- Cover with cellophane or foil, trying not to touch the cream filling with the cover. Chill for three hours or overnight.
The bottom line
The ginger and lime make a natural pairing in this no-bake cheesecake. You can cover this with foil or cellophane and refrigerate at least three hours, overnight, or grab a spoon and scoop everyone a soft but decadent piece of no-bake cheesecake.
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You may have a little more filling than your pan will hold. This is certainly a happiness problem, so store the extra filling in a container with a lid and eat it with a spoon at your leisure.
It’s not overwhelmed with citrus flavor, as Key Lime Pie might be, but you definitely get a nice bite of fresh lime as you sink your teeth into the thick, buttery ginger cookie crust.
Since the bottom is not baked, you get the snappy but not tough crumb crust made softer overnight.
This isn’t like any other no-bake cheesecake I’ve encountered. It’s got tons of flavor on its own and doesn’t need a topping or sauce. I hope you like it! Let me know if you give this one a try!
