I am not a big fan of desserts, and especially not cheese cake, but the theme for the dinner party we served this at was Asian so I thought it would be nice to have either an Asian dessert or an Asian salad. I didn’t feel inspired to make a salad so I started looking for a dessert.

The source for this dessert was a bargain cookbook we’d bought a while back, from which I have since made countless meals: Simple Japanese by Silla Bjerrum.

The recipe says to use ginger biscuits instead of the usual digestive biscuits but I had to find ginger biscuits without a nut product. The only ginger biscuits I could find had coconut in it.

(I found out later that people with nut allergies are usually not affected by coconut. In 2006 the FDA defined coconut as a tree nut so caution should be taken, but generally people are not affected by coconuts.)

Let me back up here and say one of the people coming for dinner has a nut allergy. Anyway, I decided to err on the side of caution and bought digestive biscuits as well. I decided to use the digestive biscuits and later found out my guest was not allergic to coconuts. Next time I make this cheesecake I will try the ginger biscuits.

My local grocery store, which is a big national chain here in Ontario, used to carry crème fraîche but no longer does. Neither does anyone else around here, or so it seems. Now as I am writing this I just realized there is a local dairy nearby that I have not checked out, so tomorrow I will stop by to see if they carry it. Belle did find me a recipe on-line to make your own crème fraîche but I had forgotten about it. So I went with whipping cream and my trusty electric hand mixer.

I will definitely make this again.

You’ll notice that there is no picture of the green tea cheesecake with whipped cream and a dusting of green tea powder! I barely had time to take this picture.

Come to think of it… I didn’t even get a piece. My older son came home later with some friends and they finished it off.

Next time I’ll remember to take a picture of this as an individual serving. Maybe with crème fraîche.

Belle says: This unusual green tea dessert is a light and airy cheesecake that’s not very sweet, which is in keeping with a lot of Asian desserts. It has just the right hint of green tea. I definitely enjoyed it!

The following recipe was adapted from Simple Japanese.

Green Tea Cheesecake

Ingredients:

200g (7 oz) digestive biscuits
60g (1/4 cup) butter
75ml (about 1/3 cup or 2.5 fluid oz) double cream
3 tbsp green tea powder (matcha)
225g (8 oz) full fat cream cheese
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
200ml (6.8 fluid oz) whipping cream

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Spray a 9” spring-form cake tin with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Place biscuits in food processor, crush and place crumbs in a bowl.
4. Melt the butter in a small sauce pan, add to the biscuits and mix.
5. Pour the biscuit mixture into the cake pan and press down to create a firm layer.
6. Chill crust in the fridge for 10 minutes to allow it to set.
7. Bake crust in the oven for 10 minutes, then set aside and cool.
8. Reduce oven to 300 degrees F.
9. Heat the double cream in a small sauce pan and add the green tea powder. Do not let the cream get hotter then 185 degrees F or it will separate.
10. In a large bowl, using an electric hand mixer, mix the cream cheese and sugar until smooth on low speed.
11. Add the egg, egg yolk and the double cream mixture and mix on low until smooth.
12. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the lower third of the oven for 30 minutes (at 300 degrees F).
13. Take the cake out, let cool for one hour.
14. Whip the whipping cream.
15. Cut the cheese cake, add whipped cream and dust with green tea powder.

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