I know my tendency is to trash-talk social media, so I thought just this once, I'd recognize publicly some of its merits. 'Cause lately, I've been picking up a lot of great recipes from my Instagram feed, which is one of the many unexpected (positive) ways in which you can use social media as a tool.
Frankly, I've been dreaming of a pistachio cheesecake ever since returning from Sicily last summer. Alas, pistachio is fairly pricey here, pistachio cream isn't a thing, and since no one wanted to see it as a clear sign to return to Sicily at once, my plans for some pistachio yumminess had to be indefinitely postponed. Until last week when my mom texted to let me know they'd be selling pistachio cream at Lidl this week, which immediately had me all excited.
I love to cook. I don't make a big thing out of it, but I'm a little old lady at heart. Cooking yummies, potting my houseplants, you know the type. Luckily, I got there fairly early, and grabbed the last jar on the shelf. I was also able to snag one another shopper had discarded in a different part of the store, so managed to get my hand on a good bit of pistachio-ness.
On to the project. Try as I might, I couldn't find a recipe I liked on my go-to recipe websites. I don't trust eggs in cheesecake, and some of the ganaches I was seeing made no sense. So I turned to Instagram, and lo and behold, it turned out I'd actually saved a recipe for pistachio cheesecake some weeks before. I'd also been looking for the website I'd used to make a terrific coconut cheesecake a while back (hoping they'd have a pistachio recipe), only to discover that came from IG as well.
I loved this French recipe for pistachio cheesecake, as it was easy, non-pretentious and in step with my ideas about cheesecake, so I set to work.
(I'm sharing it here for ease of use, and slightly altered by yours truly, but all credit where it's due, of course, namely to @mes_delicieuses_creations on IG.)
Base:
~240 g biscuits
~150 g melted butter
You just want to mash the biscuits (I used a blender) to a powder, and combine with the melted butter until they form a base-looking mass. I think this was a no-bake recipe, meaning you can stick it straight into the fridge after you've crafted the base inside your cake pan (I used 23 cm).
Cream:
750 g mascarpone cheese
200 g cream cheese
~100 g heavy cream
150 g powdered sugar
150 g pistachio cream/butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Just mix them all together until you get a fine greenish cream. I first did the cheese, cream and sugar, adding the pistachio last, but anything works.
Ganache:
(This wasn't in the recipe, and frankly, you don't need it, as the cream came out quite thick already, so you could easily wait a bit and decorate that. I personally like a ganache for finish, so I sort of improvised here.)
100 g white chocolate
100 g heavy cream (or cream for whipping)
40-50 g pistachio butter
Just melt the white chocolate over low fire in a bain-marie (pot inside a pot with boiling water), then gently blend through with the cream and pistachio.
The ganache came out fairly liquidy, so I refrigerated for like 10 minutes. Be careful, 'cause it begins to thicken quite fast, so make sure you pour it over the cake right away. I then decorated with some ground, unsalted pistachios, and let it cool for several hours.
And voila.
Cheesecake has got to be one of my favorite things to make as it's super easy, quick and delicious. With high temperatures coming in fast over here, I think it's a perfect creamy, light dessert. Frankly, this pistachio variant came out a little heavier than I expected (could make you sick if you eat too much or too fast), so I advise temperance. Probably wouldn't make it in hotter months, as I think it would be too heavy, and would stick with something fruit-based instead, but right now, it's perfect.
I'm also an old lady in the sense that I get excited about saving money. As I said, pistachio is insanely expensive here, and seems to be quite a trend on social media, so I've seen a lot of fancier cafes start serving pistachio products like croissants and cakes and such at exorbitant prices.
There's a coffee shop I love that serves this tiny pistachio slice of cake for like $6.50 which is a lot for a piece of cake here.
I think all in all I paid about $13 for the ingredients for this cheesecake, which yields at least 8 servings, so less than $2 a serving. So yay for money well spent and yummy treats :)
