Biscuit Layered Cheesecake : LTU Milk

Milk is the theme on LTU this month and hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House. I am one of those people who does not drink milk. Yah, yah, I know it is supposed to be good for me - the calcium and all. I was told that when I was small, I stopped drinking milk after my grandfather took away my milk bottle. Apparently, I refused to drink from a cup. I guess the milk didn't taste as nice sipped from a cup and I preferred my "guleng kuan" (milk bottle). As a small kid, there's nothing like spending a lazy afternoon in bed sucking at your milk bottle and clutching on to your smelly bolster, right? A cup? Where's the fun? Hence the protest which lasted until now hah..hah...

Actually, I don't like plain milk. I don't like the taste but I love chocolate milk. I can finish one big carton of cold chocolate milk all by myself. But that was of course way before I developed lactose intolerance. One sip of milk and 5 minutes later I'll be running to the toilet hah...hah... But the funny thing is, if I take milk with cornflakes or cereal, I don't experience any adverse effects. Luckily, I can take milk in other forms like yoghurt, cheese and cream.

I bookmarked this recipe from Jess of Bakericious since last year but I never got the chance to try it. This cake is very easy to put together and there is no baking involved. What is important is that you must use a good biscuit. Good biscuit need not necessarily mean expensive biscuit. What I mean by good biscuit is biscuit that you enjoy eating out of hand. It has been a long, long time since I ate biscuits. Reason being, I never keep biscuits or any tidbits at home because I tend to get itchy mouth whenever I have any form of munchies in the pantry.

The original recipe calls for Marie biscuits. Which was what I used in my first attempt. I could not find chocolate Marie biscuits and I settled for coffee flavour. I was very disappointed with that particular brand because there was no coffee taste at all. Jess highlighted some problems that she faced when making this cake namely the amount of cream cheese stated in the original recipe was not enough and the cream cheese was difficult to spread. I learnt from Jess' experience and also from my first attempt. This time round, forget about Marie biscuits. I decided to try Captain Munch. 

One advantage of this biscuit is that it is square which makes assembling the biscuits in a square pan a lot easier. Besides, this biscuit tastes pretty good, very nice malty chocolaty taste.

The biscuit will not fit perfectly as there will be a small gap towards the end. What I did was just to break the biscuit into a size that would fit. Of course it didn't fit perfectly but it did not really matter. With Jess' comment about the cream cheese being hard and difficult to spread, I decided to use condensed milk to sweeten the cream cheese instead of sugar. The condensed milk made the cream cheese softer and creamier. I wanted to add some cherry filling but I did not have time to make it from scratch. Instead, I used St Dalfour Black Cherry jam. This jam is thick with whole black cherries and no sugar added.

I should have listened to Jess and used 750g of cream cheese but I was stingy and stuck with 500g. Because of that, I could only make 3 layers and there was barely enough for the top layer. I also used chocolate shavings and used only one bar of chocolate. Again, not enough to go around which explains why I had to use chocolate rice for the topping. So you see, stinginess does not pay when making cakes hah...hah...hah...

This cake is chilled overnight and the next morning, I sliced the cake. I had one slice and wow, it was wonderful! The combination of cream cheese and condensed milk with black cherries and chocolate tasted so very good. With this cake, you can get very creative and use many other biscuit flavours and fillings. I love this cake for its simplicity and I will be making it again with other flavours soon.

Biscuit Layered Cheesecake
Recipe source : Adapted from Bakericious

Note :
1. I made this cake in an 8" square tin with removable bottom.
2. I also lined the pan with baking paper with overhang to make removal of the cake easier and neater.
3. I find it easier to spread the cream cheese layer using the back of a spoon.
4. The was some leftover biscuits after making this cake and 120ml milk to dip the biscuits was just nice for me.

Ingredients : 
- 500g cream cheese at room temperature (I will use 750g in future)
- 1/2 can condensed milk (or to taste)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 120ml milk
- 70g melted butter
- 2 packets Captain Munch chocolate biscuits
- Some black cherry jam
- 75g chocolate shavings (In future I will double the amount)

Method :
1. Using a hand whisk, beat cream cheese until creamy.
2. Add condensed milk, vanilla extract and beat until well combined and creamy.
3. Crush 150g biscuits until fine and mix the crushed biscuits with melted butter. Mix until well combined and pour the crushed biscuits into the prepare cake tin.
4. Spread the crushed biscuits evenly on the bottom of the pan and press firmly until biscuits are evenly spread.
5. Spread a layer of cream cheese over the biscuit layer.
6. Dot some black cherry jam on the cream cheese layer.
7. Sprinkle some chocolate shavings evenly over the cream cheese layer.
8. Dip each piece of biscuit into the milk (do no soak too long. Dip and take out immediately) and arrange in a single layer on the cream cheese. 
9. Repeat steps 5, 6, 7 and 8 and ending with final cheese layer.
10. Sprinkle chocolate shavings onto the top cheese layer and chill the cake overnight.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House.