Fresh fruit cheese cake - With yogurt

" Here's a perfect recipe for all cheesecake lovers.It's healthy, with easily available ingredients and no raw egg's. Have been making this one for over 20 years, made almost 6 of them for a special family occasion.They are light, flavorful and as guilt free as cheese cakes can be..."

Servings - 8- 10

Ingredients:

 Base

• 200 gms digestive biscuit
• 50 gms melted butter
• 1 tsp rind of lemon/lime

 Filling

• 400 gms yogurt regular ( or 1 cup thick yogurt)
• 200 gms low fat or single cream
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 200 gms strawberries(mangoes or any other fresh fruit you may want to use)
• 1 tsp vanilla (pod/paste/essence)
• 1 tbsp gelatin
• 4 tbsp water
• 1 tsp lime /lemon juice

Method:

Base

1. Butter a spring-foam pan or a pie dish which has a diameter of 10 inches
2. Crush biscuits coarsely
3. Mix with melted butter and rind
4. Layer the dish with biscuits at the bottom and the sides, pressing firmly (use a flat bottom glass or bowl to help press down as firmly as possible)
5. Refrigerate biscuit base for 1/2 hour

  Filling

1.  Hang regular yogurt in a muslin cloth for 2 hours to remove excess water, balance thick yogurt should amount to 1 cup OR use 1 cup of thick yogurt
2. Soak the gelatin in warm water for 15 minutes, and warm over simmering water till translucent (gelatin bowl should not be touching the water. OR prepare the gelatin as per box instructions
3. Puree the strawberries, leaving 3 whole for decorating purposes
4. In a bowl mix all the filling ingredients - yogurt, cream,strawberry puree, sugar, vanilla, lime,gelatin and beat till smooth
5. Pour the mixture over the biscuit base, wrap with clingfilm and chill overnight
6. Decorate with sliced strawberries and ENJOY

Note:

• Any fresh fruit can be used instead of the strawberries, mangoes work just great
• For a plain lemon cheesecake, remove the fruit adding the juice of one full lime
• Each serving has only 1 tsp butter + 1 tbsp cream as the guilty ingredients 

Egg-less Brownies

"For my kids school fair I volunteered to do egg-less brownies, base was my tried and tested egg-less chocolate cake recipe and went thru some 20+ brownie recipes ( egg-less, vegan etc..)  and finally wound up with an absolutely yummy and easy egg-less brownie recipe. Baked some 3 kgs of it, enjoyed by all, hope you do so too..."

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups castor sugar
• 2/3 cups cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda (use baking powder if you do not have soda)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsp vinegar 
• 3/4 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Pre heat oven at 170 degrees centigrade
2. Take a baking tin of 9" x 13" or similar size and oil the tin well.
3. Take 1 tbsp of flour and sprinkle it over the oiled tin making sure it is well covered, remove any excess flour by inverting tin
4. Warm milk, add the vinegar and let the mixture curdle  
5. Mix all dry ingredients - flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda,salt and baking powder in a bowl
6. Add the wet ingredients- curdled milk,oil and vanilla essence to the flour mixture
7. Beat with a whisk, by hand, till just mixed (mixture will be thick and sticky, do not over beat)
8. Pour into the oiled tin and if wanted add nuts ( coated in flour), pushing them in the batter slightly
9. Bake in pre-heated oven for 25 minutes or till done, and toothpick inserted in centre, comes out slightly sticky, with a few crumbs stuck to it ( Do not over bake, else it will be dry like a cake and not fudgy like a brownie)

Note :

• This recipe, makes approximately 1 kg, of 12 pieces of 3" x 3" brownies
• If you want to add nuts, be sure to coat them with flour, else they will sink to the bottom.
• Any other additions, like chocolate chips etc., all to be coated in flour before mixing in batter or decorating on top