Hey Bakers,
I absolutely love this recipe. I opted to do cheesecake jars instead of an entire pie and took them to a party. I highly recommend reading my notes at the bottom BEFORE making but if you don’t and it doesn’t come out the way that it’s supposed to then I blame you 😆.
Apple Filling
4-6 apples any variety
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 C brown sugar, packed
1tsp vanilla
1/2 C water
Cornstarch slurry (2tsp cornstarch, 1 tbsp water)*
*wait to add this
Crust
No Bake Cheesecake
Optional Ingredients:
Caramel Sauce - I bought it, but if you're feeling special you can make it.
Instructions
Dice or cut your apples, however you like and put into a saucepan.
Add everything except for the slurry and on medium heat occasionally stir until the apples are tender.
Add the slurry and turn off the heat. Set aside.
If you are making a pie, turn your oven to 350 F. If you are making cake jars, then disregard this step.
Grab your pie container and mix your graham crackers with your butter and cinnamon. Using the back of a cup or a spoon press your graham cracker Cus down so it’s an even layer and packed into your entire pie container. if you are making cake jars, you do not need to pack it together just mix all the gradients in a bowl and set aside.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes and set aside.
Add your cream cheese, Cool Whip, and cinnamon to your mixer and beat for 2-3 min.
Slowly, add your sugar to the mixture and be until the filling is not grainy. Shouldn’t take longer than 7 to 8 minutes total.
For Pies, put the cream cheese filling into the pie crust and top with apples and caramel.
For cake, jars, using a small spoon, layer jars with the crust on the bottom then the cream cheese, some caramel and some apples and continue until the jar is full.
Chill for at least 3 1/2 hours or overnight.
Notes and Important Things:
I absolutely love this recipe because of it simplicity. It took me 45 minutes to prepare everything and 15 minutes to assemble it all.
There are a few important things to know about it because if I hadn’t been paying attention, I would’ve made a couple mistakes.
First, when you’re making the filling, consider what type of baked good you’re trying to make so if I
were to make an actual pie, I would’ve probably sliced my apples instead of dicing them.
That being said, if you choose to dice them, I don’t recommend going any smaller than half an inch because the end up becoming applesauce as they break down.
You may be tempted to add all of the ingredients in the pot at the very beginning, but make sure to leave out the slurry until everything is all cooked because if not, it will become really goopy and sticky and have glue taste because the cornstarch was introduced too fast.
If you have dry, clumpy brown sugar, that's okay! I had to stab mine with a knife to get it to break apart enough for me to put it in the pot. It will all melt together in the end. There are ways to prevent this from happening to your sugar, but I was too lazy to worry about that.
For the filling, make sure that you add the sugar slowly and that you’re tasting it after you’ve added all of it. When I tasted mine the first time, it was very gritty because the sugar hadn’t fully incorporated and I could taste chunks of the cream cheese. Make sure to leave it long enough so that it is smooth but if you whip it past about 10 minutes, you run the risk of your whipped cream separating and once that happens, you can’t fix it. I do recommend using whip topping like Cool Whip versus whip cream because the whipped topping is a little bit more stable and the whip cream has the tendency to be over mixed.
Bonus! If you’re lactose intolerant and have to use lactose free cream cheese, Cool Whip is actually lactose free so won’t interfere with your filling.
Lastly, assemble them over a piece of parchment paper or in a baking sheet. I didn’t do that and I normally put one down and I ended up getting graham cracker everywhere.
Other than that, the recipe is pretty straightforward. I hope you guys like it and yes, I know this isn’t a true cheesecake, but I was too lazy for that. It ended up being freaking delicious so I have no regrets.
If you try it, let me know how you like it and send me a pic/tag me on your socials! @loveandbaking2018
XOXO
-Ashley
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