Home baked Cheesecake: Flavour #46 Buko pandan Cheesecake

Countdown…4

Buko pandan is a very popular dessert in Filipino gathering. Buko (young coconut meat) pandan (tropical plant in Asia usually used in cakes to give a beautiful aroma and green colour) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandanus_amaryllifolius.

In buko pandan salad, I usually mixed the pandan essence with the gulaman (jelly) and this is exactly what i did in this mini cheesecake.

First, I mixed the coconut juice about 1 cup with a small packet pandan flavoured jelly, let it boiled for few minutes, I didn’t add any sugar in the mixture, thinking the calories I gonna have when I eat all cheesecake hahaha of course, You can always add (at your own risk!) ;-). Keep it aside and once its solid, cut it into any shape, I choose- heart shape!

To make it more authentic, I used otap as a crust ( a small oval shape puff pastry- made with a mixture of flour,coconut,shortening and sugar)

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 pkg of otap biscuits, crushed

2 tbsp of unsalted butter

filling:

2 pkg (250g ea) Philadelphia Cream cheese

1/2 cup plain yoghurt

1/2 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp pandan essence

1/3 cup condensed milk

shredded young coconut meat

1 drop green food colour

Topping:

Gulaman (jelly) pandan flavoured

1 cup coconut juice

sugar (according to your taste)

Directions:

Pre heat oven Gas mark #3

Crushed the otap,mix with melted butter and press crumbed mixture into the bottom of the springform pan, set aside.

Beat cream cheese until fluffy, add sugar and yoghurt. Beat in eggs one at a time until well combine .Add shredded coconut meat,panda essence and condensed milk. Pour into the prepared pan. Baked for 45 minutes (if using small cupcake pan) 1hour and 30 minutes if using a normal 9 inches springform pan. Topped with a heart-shaped cut jelly and coconut meat, sprinkle with pandan powder mixed with fine caster sugar.

Ladies, I divided the cheese mixture into two, one with green food colour and one with out. You can experiment any combination you want to make it more pleasing to the eyes, but this flavour is so yummy with or without colour