Forget the ice cream or popsicles. Sweeten your summer with some homemade fruit-flavored icebox cakes. Here, Chris Kimball from "America's Test Kitchen" shares his recipes for lemon cheesecake and raspberry chiffon pie.
Recipe: Lemon icebox cheesecake (on this page) Recipe: Raspberry chiffon pie (on this page)Let the dissolved gelatin mixture cool down for a few minutes, or the gelatin will seize when combined with the filling. We tested our cheesecake with several store brands of lemon sandwich cookies; all worked well.
Make crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Process cookies in food processor until finely ground. Add butter and zest and pulse until combined. Press mixture into bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Bake until lightly browned and set, about 10 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack, at least 30 minutes.
Make curd: While crust is cooling, whisk egg, egg yolk, sugar, and salt together in small saucepan. Add lemon juice and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until thick and puddinglike, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter and cream. Press through fine-mesh strainer into small bowl and refrigerate until needed.
Soften gelatin Combine lemon juice and gelatin in small bowl and let stand until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Microwave until mixture is bubbling around edges and gelatin dissolves, about 30 seconds. Set aside.
Make filling: With electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, sugar, and salt until smooth and creamy, scraping down sides of bowl, about 2 minutes. Slowly add cream and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add gelatin mixture and 1/4 cup curd, increase speed to medium-high, and beat until smooth and airy, about 3 minutes.
Chill cheesecake: Pour filling into cooled crust and smooth top. Pour thin lines of remaining curd on top of cake and lightly drag paring knife or skewer through lines to create marbled appearance. Refrigerate until set, at least 6 hours. Remove sides of pan. Serve. (Cheesecake can be covered in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
Key ingredients: Layers of lemon flavor. An extraordinary icebox lemon cheesecake requires more than a squeeze of lemon.
Lemon sandwich cookies: Instead of the standard graham cracker crumbs, we used crushed lemon sandwich cookies for our crust.
Lemon juice and zest: Divide and conquer-we added 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice to the filling and 1 teaspoon lemon zest to the crust.
Lemon curd: We mixed tangy, homemade lemon curd into the batter and swirled extra on top of the cheesecake.
Shopping with the Test Kitchen: Cheater's Cheesecake. Homemade lemon curd can't be beat. Don't have the 15 minutes it takes to make it, though? You can find jarred curd in the jam section of the supermarket. But be forewarned: All brands are not created equal. The only one we can recommend is Wilkin & Sons, which captures the taste of real lemons and is creamy enough to use in our Lemon Icebox Cheesecake (you will need 1/2 cup). Just so you know: It costs about $9.
Serves 12 to 16
The heavy cream must be ice cold; if not, it won't hold stiff peaks, no matter how long or hard you beat it. Soften the cream cheese at room temperature; the microwave will cause the cheese to separate.
Fruit layer: Cook frozen berries in medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until berries begin to give up their juice, about 3 minutes. Stir in pectin and bring to full boil, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar and salt and return to full boil. Cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Pour through fine-mesh strainer into medium bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much puree as possible. Scrape puree off underside of strainer into bowl.
Transfer 1⁄3 cup raspberry puree to small bowl and cool to room temperature. Gently fold fresh raspberries into remaining puree. Spread fruit mixture evenly over bottom of pie shell and set aside.
Chiffon layer: Dissolve gelatin in boiling water in large bowl. Add cream cheese and reserved 1⁄3 cup raspberry puree and beat with electric mixer on high speed, scraping down sides of bowl once or twice, until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add 1 cup cream and beat on medium-low until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl. Beat on high speed until cream holds stiff peaks, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread evenly over fruit in pie shell. Cover pie with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until set, at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.
Whipped cream topping: When ready to serve, beat 11⁄4 cups cream and sugar to stiff peaks. Spread or pipe over chilled filling. Serve.
For the fruit layer: For the bottom layer, we used Sure-Jell (pectin) to achieve a concentrated raspberry flavor and texture. There are two formulations of Sure-Jell. We found that the original formula (sold in the bright yellow box) made the smoothest, thickest bottom layer of fruit.
For the chiffon layer: A few tablespoons of raspberry gelatin made for great stability and color in the creamy chiffon layer and reinforced the berry flavor.
Serves 8 to 10
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