Freeze-Dried Berry No-Bake Cheesecake

 

I love the idea of no-bake desserts especially when it's hot outside because the last thing I want to do is turn on an oven.  When I saw this post on Serious Eats for a no-bake cheesecake that used freeze-dried fruit I was definitely intrigued.  I've made an icebox cheesecake before but I liked this recipe from Stella Parks because it used the freeze-dried fruits to infuse a fruity flavor, but sans the additional moisture that fresh fruit would bring. 

 

 

Luckily I had a bag of freeze-dried raspberries from Trader Joe's sitting in my pantry along with the other cheesecake ingredients to make half the recipe.  The recipe scaled down easily to fit a 9x5" loaf pan.  Since I'm trying to limit the number of trips I make to the grocery store it's always a plus when I have everything on hand.   

 

 

I had a taste of the filling as I was making the cheesecake and the intense raspberry flavor from the freeze-dried fruit was incredible.  It was literally a berry explosion.  Is it strange that it reminded me of fruit-flavored Starburst candies?  As a self-professed lover of the color pink this cheesecake also appealed to me aesthetically.  I could easily picture this dessert gracing the table at a baby shower or birthday party.  

Pinwheel Icebox Cookies

Every holiday season I love to bake a variety of cookies to give as gifts to friends and family.  Baking is what you'd call my love language.  Certain cookies are on repeat every year, e.g., walnut snowballs and chocolate crinkles, because they are holiday classics and always delicious.  

This year the time frame between Thanksgiving and Christmas was so short, compared to years past, that I searched for recipes that could be made well in advance.  No point slaving away in the kitchen all at once when I could spread the work out, right?   

I was inspired to make these Pinwheel Icebox Cookies when I saw a picture of similar cookies on Baked By Rachel's Instagram account.  Cook's Illustrated has a great recipe for vanilla icebox cookies which I adapted slightly.  Trust me, it wasn't as complicated as it might sound.  I basically just took half the dough and colored it red, then I layered the two colors and rolled them up in to a long log.  A final roll in some red and green nonpareils was all that was needed.  A chill in the fridge and then just slice and bake.  As Ina Garten would say, "how easy is that?"