Nutella cheesecake - the no-bake treat!

Nutella Cheesecake - pic from my guest Maribel (who declared the cake 'delicioso')

This post could have been called: 'How to make a Nutella Cheesecake in 20 minutes (and eat it in three)'.

I love this Nutella dish. It is easy, quick to make, always looks amazing and takes little to no time to make. It is also not as rich as you might think, which means it is perfect for a naughty treat.

We tend to use low-fat Philadelphia cream cheese and low-fat Flora Light spread, as my way of making it a little healthier - although if you're going to use an entire tub of Nutella as I do, perhaps that negates the healthy effort!

You will need:

For the base:

200g butter or Flora Light

100g brown or muscovado sugar

1 pack of digestive biscuits

For the topping:

1 400g jar of Nutella

1 300g tub of Philadelphia cream cheese

1 small bag of blanched whole hazelnuts to decorate (optional)

How to make:

Melt the sugar and butter together in a saucepan on a low heat. Stir until smooth, then turn off the heat.

Crush the biscuits and grind them until all the large chunks have gone. I have a kitchen gadget now that does this for me - basically a little hand-held, hand-powered grater thingy, but before that I just used to wrap the pack of biscuits in a clean tea-towel and beat the living daylights out of them with a rolling pin. Good therapy.

Anyway, I digress. Add the ground biscuits to the sugar/butter mix, and stir. The mix should be firm - like cookie dough - so that you can press it into a greased flan dish (or in my case, the lid of a large casserole dish).

Leave to cool slightly. In a clean bowl, empty the entire jar of Nutella and blend it with the cream cheese until there is no white cheese visible and the mixture is smooth. Spread it evenly over the top of the biscuit base and leave to set.

For decoration, sprinkle with cocoa and place the blanched whole hazelnuts on top. 

Serve and enjoy! 

*In the meantime, since making this for my friends Dave, Maribel and William, Dave has tried this recipe at home and he has added a layer of peanut butter between the biscuit base and the Nutella topping. My own husband thinks this is a step too far, and quite a few more calories too far, but according to Dave and Maribel, it tastes of Reece's peanut butter cups. Which sounds delicious.