Blueberry Cheesecake - Eggless and Gelatine Free

There have been so many versions of cheesecakes, baked, no bake, with eggs, without eggs...etc.. I have made many cheesecakes before and have blogged about it here. But I do get a lot of requests by my vegetarian friends and bloggers to come up with an eggless or gelatin free version. So here is what I came up with. I'll be honest, this was a pure experiment!

So, on my recent trip to Metro C&C, I found the newly launched Britannia Cream Cheese. Its expensive, however cheaper than the other versions like Philadelphia, etc. So I decided to give it a shot.

Ingredients:
For the crust:
125 gms plain flour,
100 gms chilled butter, cut into cubes,
A pinch of salt,

For the Cheesecake:

180 gms cream cheese, (I have used Britannia),
100 gms castor sugar,
50 gms whipped cream,
100 gms blueberry topping, can use fresh blueberries also.
Method:

For the crust:

1. To prepare the crust, mix the flour, salt and chilled butter using light fingers. Rub the butter into the flour so that it resembles coarse bread crumbs. Slowly bring the dough together. Cover using a cling film and chill in the refrigerator for an hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 190 degree for 10 mins.
3. Remove the dough from refrigerator and roll out the dough using a rolling pin to 1/4th inch thickness.
4. Place this dough sheet on a loose bottom baking tin and press it down gently. Ensure the sides are adequately covered. 
5. Leave a little excess on the sides as the dough will shrink upon baking.
6. Pricking the base of the tin with a fork, cover it with a butter paper and put some dried beans on top of it.
7. Allow it to bake for 15 mins. Remove the beans and the butter paper and bake for another 15 mins.
8. Allow it to cool down completely.

For the cheesecake:

1. Put the cream cheese in a big bowl and using an electric beater, beat until it turns slightly fluffy.
2. Add the sugar and beat some more. You will see that the filling has increased in volume.,
3. Using a ballon whisk, fold in half of the blueberry topping.
4. Now fold in the whipped cream with gentle hands. 
5. Pour the mixture into the cooled crust and using a spatula level the mixture.
6. Put the remaining bluberry topping on top of the cream cheese mixture and level it once again.
7. Place the tin in the refrigerator to chill overnight.
8. Gently remove the crust from the tin, it would come off easily.
9. Using a sharp knife, cut into slices and serve chilled.

The result was beyond my expectation. Here I must add that the Britannia cream cheese is slightly salty, hence, you will have to keep tasting to get the right sweetness. The bluberry topping already had a little sweetness and it set very well on top. You could make strawberry cheese cake the same way.

Overall, I'm pleased with the result!