Quick and easy microwave cheesecake recipe from Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking

Hi Bold Bakers, you know by now that I am not shy about making desserts in the microwave. I went from making little mug cakes to making a whole three layered cake in there. So this led me to think, what other desserts could I make in the microwave? Well how about a New York style baked cheesecake? It's possible and the results are amazing. So let's get micro baking. So I've proven on Bigger Bolder Baking that you do not need an oven to make amazing desserts. For all of my microwave bowl recipes and the recipe for this cheesecake go to BiggerBolderBaking.com. Ok now like any other cheesecake we're gonna start out by making our crust. Now in my bowl I have some ground up cookies. These are graham crackers but you can use any kind of plain cookie that you have. At home in Ireland we would use digestive biscuits and they work really well. So into my cookie crumbs I'm gonna pour in some melted butter. This is kind of the delicious glue that holds the cookie crumbs together. And all you want to do is just stir that until the cookies are coated, lovely. That's our crust, easy peasy. And then what we're going to do is put it into our mold. Now just like my microwavable cake, you have to have a mold that is microwavable safe. This is a silicone mold and I'm going to put a link on my website of where you can buy this. I love these guys. But if you don't have one of these, don't worry about it. You can always use a casserole dish, anything that is microwavable safe. Now I'm gonna take my crust, and I'm just gonna pour it in here. Get it nice and level as you can, and compact so it all sticks together. You guys know from watching a lot of Bigger Bolder Baking, the crust is my favorite part of a cheesecake. Okay so that's it, I'm gonna pop this guy into the fridge and let it set up, and then we're gonna make our cheesecake filling. So now for that delicious filling a New York style baked cheesecake has. I'm gonna make mine plain, just flavored with a little bit of vanilla, but you can add in blueberries, lemon zest, whatever you want into yours. So in my large bowl I'm gonna add in my cream cheese, my sugar, and my vanilla extract. And then what I'm gonna do is cream these together until there's no more lumps. So after two or three minutes it's nice and creamed up. Next thing we're going to do is pour in our cream. Now the cream is what makes your cheesecake really nice and airy. And then in with our mixer again and we're gonna beat it up for another two to three minutes. Okie dokie. Now next we're going to add in our eggs. Now eggs in a cheesecake actually help it set but if you don't eat eggs you can always check my conversion chart. And I would say maybe like a flax egg or something might work in replacement of them. Then we're going to go in again with our electric hand mixer. And all you want to do is just beat this up until it gets a little bit thicker, roughly two to three minutes. Now because there are eggs in here, we have to be careful when we microwave because we don't want to overcook the eggs. But don't worry, I'm going to talk you through this step by step. So you're going to end up with a perfect cheesecake. Great, this is thickened up. It's looking delicious. Now I'm going to take this mix and pour it over my crust. So here's my crust, it's out of the fridge and it's firmed up nicely. I'm gonna take my cream cheese mix and then just pour it in on top. It'll kind of settle itself out and make itself even. This is going to be delicious I already can tell. Okay lovely! I don't know if you can tell but this is gonna make a big cheesecake. Probably feeds around I'd say 8-12 people. I'm just gonna spread out the top with my spatula. Lovely. Can't beat a New York style cheesecake, absolutely not. Especially one that doesn't take an hour to bake in the oven. Ok perfect, this guy is ready to go into the microwave, now this is where the magic happens. We're gonna cook this off for roughly 2 minutes at a time, based on my microwave which is 1200 watts. Check the wattage of your microwave because your timing may vary. If your wattage is lower, that's even better because you don't want to cook this too much, you don't want it to get too hot or your eggs will overcook. So we're gonna cook it very gently. So after the 2 minutes you will notice that it might start to wrinkle on the top, it gets a little bit bubbly, it's starting to cook through now we need to cook it all the way through so we're going to continue cooking it at two minute intervals. But don't worry, I'm going to show you exactly what it should look like when it's done. So while the cheesecake is in the microwave, I'm going to take this minute to tell you about all my other recipes for micro baking. I have a page dedicated to microwave mug meals on my website biggerbolderbaking.com. So make sure you go check them out. So it's been just a few minutes and as you can see there's still a tiny bit of a jiggle in the center of my cheesecake, that is exactly what I want because it means it's a few seconds away from being done. You know sometimes I even surprise myself, but in my microwave this cheesecake only took around 4 minutes to cook, it's kind of crazy, yours might take a little bit longer but don't worry you'll get there. Now come here to me, I want to show you the telltale signs of how you can tell your cheesecake is done so you don't over or undercook it. So as you can see, it wrinkles around the edges, this is great, it did crack up a little bit in the middle that's totally fine that is natural that's the eggs cooking inside of there and as you can see there's a few little bubbles on top that is also the eggs but if you shake it like this see that little jiggle in the middle that is exactly what we're looking for we want that jiggle because what we're gonna do now is take this cheesecake and we're gonna let it cool down once it's cooled down we're gonna pop it into the fridge let it go totally cold just for a few hours and then it is ready to slice that little jiggle will be gone and it will set the whole way through. So here's my cheesecake out of the fridge, it's been chilling for around 3 hours, let it get nice and cold. As you can see there's no more jiggle in the middle, that has set. So now this is for the moment of truth, I know sometimes I might seem like a mad scientist, but this really does work. Just check this out. I'm gonna pop it out of the tin, and just move it over to my platter, and look at that, a whole New York style baked cheesecake done in the microwave in less than five minutes. This is absolutely insane. If I didn't see it with my own two eyes, I might not even believe it. Fantastic. Now, this is already amazing. It was a cheesecake that you made in the microwave, so you don't need to do a whole lot to it. So I'm just going to decorate it with some fruit on top, just give it a nice burst of color. I'm going to dust it with a little bit of icing sugar. Gorgeous. it's all very well and good looking at this cheesecake and saying that it's done, but I'm gonna cut you a slice to show you proof that it really does work. And there you go, you know I would never lie to you, a baked cheesecake straight from the microwave. Check out that cream cheese filling, do you see how thick it is? Just like it was baked in an oven. That is pretty insane. I am delighted and somewhat surprised at how great this cheesecake turned out. I'm excited, my favorite part of the job. You know what's better than a baked cheesecake? a big cheesecake that is made in the microwave under 5 minutes. This is incredible. Honestly, you have got to try this recipe because there is no difference between this and a cheesecake that comes out of the oven after an hour of cooking. I really hope you enjoyed this episode, thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.