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Cherry-Berry Low-fat Fake Cheesecake

A low-fat cheesecake made with cherry gelatin, cranberry sauce, sour cherries, and a vanilla pudding base.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cherry and cranberry share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 48 recipes mention both. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: egg yolk

Directions

Make the cherry-cranberry base

  1. Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil.

  2. Add cherry gelatin and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add cranberry sauce and stir to break up and dissolve the sauce. Stir until all the jelled cranberry has melted and only the cranberries remain whole.

  4. Drain the cherry juice into a bowl, using a non-metallic colander.

  5. Mash the cherries with your fingers to further drain the juice and break up the cherries into small pieces. When cherries are completely drained, add them to the gelatin/cranberry combination.

  6. Put the cherry juice into a two-cup measuring cup. Add enough ice cubes (or water) to make almost but not quite 2 cups.

  7. Add to the cherry-berry mix, stirring until the ice cubes are entirely melted.

  8. Pour into a 3-quart casserole or other dish.

  9. Chill until gelatin is set.

Make the pudding topping

  1. Put 1/4 cup of water into a glass bowl or measuring cup. Add the unflavored gelatin and let set for two or three minutes to soften.

  2. Place in the microwave for 30 seconds to melt, or heat in a small pan over medium-low heat.

  3. Make the vanilla pudding according to instructions at http://sneakykitchen.com/Recipes/vanilla_pudding.htm, but adding an extra rounded teaspoon of cornstarch. If you don't use egg yolks, use two teaspoons of extra cornstarch instead of one.

  4. At the end, mix in the extra 1/2 cup of fat-free sour cream, the melted unflavored gelatin, plus 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract and remove from heat.

  5. Allow the pudding to cool to barely warm, stirring from time to time so a skin doesn't form.

Assemble and set

  1. Pour gently on top of the cherry-berry gelatin mixture.

  2. Chill thoroughly for several hours until firm, preferably overnight.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cherry + cranberrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Cherry + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cherry + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Gelatin + creamtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cranberry + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cherry flavored gelatin
Sets the fruit base into a firm, sliceable layer.
Whole cranberry sauce
Adds body and tartness to the cherry-berry base once it dissolves.
Unflavored gelatin
Sets the pudding layer so it holds its shape when cut.
Fat free sour cream
Adds tangy creaminess to the pudding while keeping it low in fat.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Thickens the vanilla pudding so it stays smooth and spoonable.

The step that matters

Cool the pudding to barely warm before pouring. If the pudding is too hot it can melt the set cherry layer and blend the two layers. Stirring it while it cools keeps a skin from forming on top.

Flavor stand-ins for the cranberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cherry, sauce, vanilla, gelatin, corn, cream, almond):

  1. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  2. Peachbetter flavor fit
  3. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  4. Cranberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cherry, sauce, vanilla, gelatin, corn, cream, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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