Cheesecake - Part 2

So now I had the butter, paneer, cream cheese ready, and I was all set to go.

The recipe called for a flour base, but that needed almond-meal that I was lazy to make, so I compromised and made a base from Digestive biscuits and butter (the easiest way ;)). I used about 90g of butter for 12 digestive biscuits, and this seemed to make the appropriate thickness in a 19cm pan (I measured it as the original recipe was for a 20cm springform pan).

In case of a flour base, it needs to be baked in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees C for 15 mins. The biscuit base can apparently just be chilled (not baked), but I figured this out only later, so I baked that one anyway for about 10-12 mins till it browned up nicely.

For the filling:
300 g Paneer
170 g Cream cheese
(You can use 500g + 330g if you have a larger pan)
3 eggs                       (4 in original)
1 1/3 cup sugar         (I reduced to little less than 1 cup)
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp lemon rind
1/4 cup lemon juice (I added a bit of Lemoneez as I felt the juice I squeezed wasn't enough)
1 tbsp cornflour (mixed with same amt of water)

Put all the above in a mixie/food processor and it makes a liquidy mixture. Don't mix too long, just enough make it even else it adds too many bubbles. Pour onto base, and bake for 1 hour at the same temperature. Leave in the oven after turning off for 1 more hour. Then into the fridge for 6 hours and you're all set (literally :)).

Ideally you can use a springform pan, so that the sides can be taken off and you can cut beautiful pieces immediately. I didn't have one, and didn't want to buy one just for this, so used a regular pan. Did not try to heroically invert and take out, instead cut out the first piece which obviously doesn't come out looking great, and then you have enough moving space to cut out neat pieces for the rest. After cutting 3-4 pieces, the remaining big chunk came out easily for storing in a different container.

I had quite a big setback with a power cut of half an hour after it had been in the oven for 20 mins! Surprizingly and unlike how a usual cake would be ruined, this one's reasonably forgiving, and I still got something that looks and tastes pretty good :).