No-Bake Twix Cheesecake

Ah, cheesecake. The simple mixture of cream cheese, cream and biscuit, filled with fruit, chocolate, nuts, syrup… the combinations are endless and there are literally thousands of recipes for any flavour you can imagine. 

Except for this one. Okay, type "twix cheesecake" into Google and you'll find several yummy-looking recipes using Oreos for a base and a lovely cheesecake filling. However, there's one problem - they're baked. 

I have nothing against baked cheesecakes. In fact, I love a plain vanilla New York cheesecake with a little fruit coulis. However, where I live, we go for the unbaked type. They're lighter, fluffier and altogether a lot less hassle than making a water bath and baking the crust separately and adding the eggs and testing it carefully and…. You get the picture. 

In this one, chocolate chip digestive biscuits (you could try graham crackers instead) are combined with melted butter and pressed into a tin. It's topped with a layer of caramel - tinned, I didn't have the time to make it myself!

Next, the cream cheese is mixed with icing sugar and a little cocoa powder, then folded into freshly whipped cream. 


Carefully spoon out the cream cheese mixture on top of the caramel and refrigerate for as long as you need. When you're ready to serve, push it out of the tin and top with chopped Twix bars. Voilà! 

No-Bake Twix Cheesecake

125g digestive biscuits (chocolate chip if possible)

75g butter

300g soft cream cheese

250ml double or whipping cream 

60g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 - 2 tsp cocoa powder

About 200g tinned caramel (or make your own)

Two twix bars, chopped

1. Bash the biscuits up into crumbs, by hand or by using a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mixture forms clumps. Press it into a 20cm loose-bottomed tin, so you can push it out to serve. Place in the fridge to firm for a little while.

2. Remove the base from the fridge and spread a layer of caramel over the base. Replace in the fridge. 

3. Beat the cream cheese with the icing sugar until soft. Don't overbeat! Add the vanilla extract and cocoa powder, then whip the cream until it stands in peaks. Carefully fold the cream into the cheese mixture. Spread over the caramel on the base (be gentle!) and  put back in the fridge. 

3. Once ready to serve, remove from the tin and decorate with chopped Twix bars. 

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express