Pavlovas always make for striking desserts at any table, but they do need a long time to dry out in the oven and can crack all too easily. If you need a more reliable option in a hurry, then why not try some personal pavlovas? This recipe features a vanilla flavoured meringue, prosecco whipped cream and is topped with a variety of berries, making it ideal as a light summer dessert!
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Gluten-Free Tropical Cheesecake
FRESH.
FRUITY.
CREAMY
FRESH.FRUITY.CREAMY
- Gluten-Free!
If you throw fruit at your dessert, then it immediately becomes a health food, right?
Well, perhaps not, but it will become an instant summer hit!
If you’re feeling fresh and fruity, or fancy a no-fuss dessert for your barbeque, then this could be the recipe for you!
Well, perhaps not, but it will become an instant summer hit!
If you’re feeling fresh and fruity, or fancy a no-fuss dessert for your barbeque, then this could be the recipe for you!
In a hurry? Then here’s your recipe!
If you like to see some more tips and tricks, then scroll away for a bit of light reading!
GF Tropical Cheesecake
Course: DessertDifficulty: EasyServings
12
servingsPrep time
1
hour30
minutesCooking time
12
minutesCooling Time
At least 6 hours
Pure summer vibes will be soon on the way when you make this cheesecake! Try to grab yourself some good quality cream cheese, as that will really bolster the dessert's texture, but feel free to get creative by topping it with any fruit you fancy!
Ingredients
- For the ginger and lime biscuits:
60g unsalted butter
120g gluten-free self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
60g caster sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
Zest of 2 limes
40g golden syrup
- For the biscuit base:
250g of your ginger and lime biscuits
80g unsalted butter
- For the cheesecake:
300g cream cheese
300g mascarpone
100g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 4 lemons
1 tbsp lemon juice
300ml double cream
- For the orange curd:
Zest of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 orange (roughly 75ml)
25g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
2 medium egg yolks, beaten
- For the toppings:
A selection of fruit! (I used 1 kiwi, 4 whole strawberries, 2 thinly sliced strawberries and a small handful of defrosted frozen mango pieces!)
- Equipment:
2x baking trays
1x 8-inch springform cake tin
Food processor
Directions
- For the biscuits:
- NOTE: If you don't fancy making your own biscuits for the cheesecake base, check out the tips at the bottom of the page for a substitution!
- Preheat your oven to 180C / 160C fan / Gas Mark 4.
- Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.
- Place the butter into a heatproof bowl and heat in the microwave until just melted, stirring at 30 second intervals. Alternatively, warm the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat until just melted. Leave to one side to cool.
- Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, sugar, ginger, cinnamon and salt into a mixing bowl.
- Add the lime zest to the mixing bowl and stir to combine.
- Pour the melted butter and golden syrup into the dry ingredients and stir together to combine into a soft dough.
- Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces, then gently roll each piece of dough into a ball.
- Place 6 balls of dough on each baking sheet, evenly separated to allow for the biscuit to spread while baking.
- Lightly press down on each piece of dough to flatten them slightly into a disc shape, then place each baking tray in the oven for 12 mins.
- Remove the biscuits from the oven and leave to cool on the trays for 10 mins to allow the biscuits to firm up. If after 10 mins the biscuits still feel slightly soft when you gently press down on them, return them to the oven for an extra 2 mins before allowing them to cool again on the tray.
- Once you are happy the biscuits are baked and have cooled on the tray for at least 10 mins, move them onto a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.
- For the biscuit base:
- Grease an 8-inch springform cake tin and line its base with baking paper.
- Place the butter into a heatproof bowl and heat in the microwave until just melted, stirring at 30 second intervals. Alternatively, warm the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat until just melted. Leave to one side to cool.
- Add the biscuits to a food processor and blitz into fine crumbs.
- Tip the biscuit crumbs into a large heatproof bowl and pour over the melted butter. Stir the mixture until it forms clumps and the butter is absorbed.
- Tip the mix into your prepared tin and push the crumbs down into the base of the tin to form a compact base for your cheesecake. Place it in the fridge for at least an hour to set.
- For the cheesecake mixture:
- In a large mixing bowl, add the cream cheese, mascarpone, vanilla extract, lemon zest and juice, then sift in the icing sugar. Beat together until combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the double cream to stiff peaks. Fold the cream into the cheese mixture gently until combined. This should make your cheesecake filling much lighter and more aerated than it was before.
- Spoon the mixture into the tin, smoothing it out with a spoon or cranked palette knife as you go to ensure that there are no empty spaces left in the tin.
- Place the tin in the fridge until the cheesecake is set, preferably overnight.
- For the orange curd:
- Weigh the butter, sugar, orange zest and orange juice into a small saucepan and place it over a low heat, stirring occasionally until the butter melts.
- Whisking constantly, pour the beaten egg yolks into the pan and continue to whisk until the curd thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- Pour the curd through a sieve into a heatproof bowl, gently stirring the contents of the sieve to ease the curd through. Allow the curd to cool slightly at room temperature, before placing in the fridge to chill.
- Assembly:
- Unmold the cheesecake from the tin. If you prefer, you can leave the cheesecake on the base of the tin to serve, preventing any breakages when trying to remove it! If the sides of the cheesecake look a bit bobbly where it has been stuck to the sides of the tin, you can use a palette knife to smooth them out.
- Place the orange curd in a piping bag and snip a small hole in the end. Pipe a splatter pattern over the top of the cheesecake and arrange the fruit on top as you wish!
Cutting corners!
As mentioned in the recipe, if you don't fancy baking a batch of biscuits just to break them up for a cheesecake base, then there is an easy alternative!
You should be able to pick up gluten-free ginger nuts in most supermarkets, so grab yourself 250g of them! To make your cheesecake base, blitz the biscuits down in a food processor, then stir in the zest of 2 limes before adding the butter. You can then follow the rest of the recipe as per usual.
While the spice and citrus flavours may not be quite as balanced as those you'll get in the homemade biscuits, it's a great solution for when you are short on time!
One batch of freshly baked biscuits, ready for blitzing!
Creating curd!
When cooking a curd, you need to be mindful of the heat! Overheating a curd can cause the eggs to scramble, leaving you with sweet lumps of egg in your lovely fruity creation! This recipe is at particular risk of this, since we are only making a very small batch of curd, making it prone to boiling over unless you are working at very low temperatures.
Hopefully, if you keep the hob at the lowest heat possible and stir the contents of the pan constantly, you should be able to produce a nice, smooth result! If you are particularly concerned, however, you can cook the curd in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of boiling water, which provides you with a less direct heat. This will take quite a bit longer to cook (hence why I don't normally do this, being an impatient wotsit!), but if you are struggling to achieve a smooth curd, this could be the solution for you!
Another top tip is that, should your curd start to boil and bubble before you've popped the egg in, remove the mixture from the heat and allow it to cool for 5 minutes before you add your beaten egg. This will reduce the chances of the egg scrambling as it hits the pan and prevent your curd from going grainy.
Wonderful whipping!
To make a smooth cheesecake filling, it's important that you whip up the ingredients to just the right consistency!
Starting with the cream cheese / mascarpone mixture, you are looking to combine together all of the ingredients and soften up the cheese, without overbeating it. Overbeating will cause the fat and the water within the cheese to separate, which will lead to a loose and runny mix that will be tricky to make set and will likely give your cheesecake an unusual texture. Therefore, you want to stop beating once the ingredients have combined together and the mix is just slightly lighter in texture than it was before, as shown below! Since we add a bit of whipped cream to the mixture later to aerate it, it's safer to stop too early than too late!
Speaking of cream, you want to whip up the double cream until it reaches stiff peak stage! But what does this mean in real terms?
Well, as you start to whip air into the cream, you will notice that it begins to change in texture as it turns from liquid to more ‘solid’ (well, as solid as whipped cream gets!). Just after the cream takes on a thicker, more ‘solid’ appearance, dip your whisk into it, before lifting the whisk back out and holding it upside down. You should notice a little peak of cream attached to the whisk, which will flop over soon after you lift it from the bowl, unable to hold it’s own shape for too long. This is known as “soft peak stage” for obvious reasons; the cream, although thickened, is still too soft to hold its own shape.
From here, you want to carry on whipping, though you should repeat this test frequently to see if the cream has advanced onto the next stage. You’ll know this is the case when the peak of cream on your whisk stands proudly into a point, rather than flopping over. This is the “stiff peak stage” you are looking for!
Gently fold the cream into the cheese mixture to aerate it, making it feel notably lighter in texture as you fold. This is exactly what you want to achieve a light, but stable, cheesecake!
However, as you may have worked out, the reason you need to test the cream regularly is because it is possible to overwhip! The first sign that you’ve gone a bit too far is if your cream has formed a ball on your whisk with no peak at all, instead appearing light and fluffy; more like a buttercream than a cream filling. An example of this can be found in the bowl below!
If you’ve been particularly overzealous, then you may even see that the cream has started to separate, with small amounts of water forming in your bowl.
Having said that, don’t panic! If there is no sign of the cream separating, you may still be able to use it, depending on the recipe! Although the cream won’t be of much decorative use, since it will appear fluffy instead of smooth and silky, we can still use it in this recipe, since we will only be combining it with heavy cream cheese to lighten the mixture up, at which point no one will ever know!
On the other hand, if there is a bit of separation going on, then you won’t really be able to use it as cream, since it will have lost its structural integrity and will continue to seep into your creation! Instead, continue to whisk the cream up on high speed to completely separate the fats from the water and you’ll soon end up with fresh butter! Strain the liquid away and stir a little salt into the butter to turn it from a mistake into a master stroke!
And there you have it! A fabulous, fruity, fuss-free food for feeding friends!
Also, if you’re social media savvy, tag me on Instagram at @toofarfletched with your creations!
-Tom 
Comments
Tom
Hi! Thanks for stopping by!
I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!
I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!
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